LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




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SERMONS 






REV. JOHN R. WARNER, D.D., 



A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE 



HIS DAUGHTER, 

MARY WARNER MOORE. 



;89§! 



HILADELPH I A; 



J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

1895- 



\- 







Copyright, 1895, 

BY 

Mary Warner Moore. 



Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. 



THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 

OF KIRKWOOD, MISSOURI, 

BETWEEN WHOM AND THEIR BELOVED PASTOR THE TIES OF 
AFFECTION INCREASED AND STRENGTHENED 

WITH 

TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OF FAITHFUL SERVICE, 

THESE SERMONS ARE 

Debicateo 

BY HIS DAUGHTER. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Biographical Sketch 7 

I. 

Pkesbyterianism in America 23 

II. 
The Way of Success 36 

III. 
The Christian in the World 47 

IV. 

A Sermon to the Children 58 

V. 

The Possibilities of Labor 66 

VI. 

He that Hath a Name to Live, and is Dead 76 

VII. 

The Insufficiency of Morality 87 

5 



t> CONTENTS. 

VIII. 
The Life is More than Meat ioo 

IX. 

Growth in Christ . . . in 

X. 

Things in the World which are not Transient 121 

XI. 

The Beauty of the Spirit's Transformation 133 

XII. 
Hidden Sins 143 

XIII. 

Christian Fidelity 155 

XIV. 

Every Man Must Needs Define Christ 167 

XV. 
The Sabbath 179 

XVI. 

The Providence of God, Above and in Second Causes . . 196 

XVII. 
The Imprecatury Psalms 210 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

OF 

REV. JOHN RIDDLE WARNER, D.D. 



On the 30th of September, 1827, a burning and a 
shining light that shone more and more unto the perfect 
day came into being. From Him " that holdeth the 
seven stars in his right hand, and who walketh in the 
midst of the seven golden candlesticks," its light went 
forth, with steady shining, until God said, " It is enough," 
and heaven received its own. Men said, as deep shadows 
fell, on February 20, 1894, " Dr. Warner is dead." But 
" at even-tide there was light." A stream of golden glory 
swept back over the pathway of him whose day knew 
no setting: whose life was and is illumined by the Sun 
of Righteousness: whose "every-day" was illumined by 
its steadfastness of purpose, its details of love and kind- 
ness, and by " the ruling of his own spirit," which is 
" greater than the taking of a city." With the prayer, 
therefore, that his works may follow him, and that the 
light of Jesus, as reflected in him, may yet shine into the 
hearts of many, is this little volume sent forth. In an 
unfinished manuscript he says, " It is an impressively 

7 



8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 

solemn thought, and one which all history and biog- 
raphy verifies, that the influence of a man's life is as 
immortal as is his soul. . . . Little did the long-dead 
characters of other times think that they were making 
history, and that the grandeur of eternity was breathing 
through all that they did. In more enduring tablets 
than of brass, marble, or even of memory, shall man be 
perpetuated, — by his example." Thus unconsciously 
does his own pen tell why we would have all know him. 
The circumstances of his childhood were not un- 
usual. His parents, Henry and Mary Riddle Warner, 
of Scotch-Irish descent, rejoiced in a strong and pious 
ancestry, while to " remember His commandments to 
do them was their highest ambition for themselves," 
their children, and their children's children. Four chil- 
dren, of whom John Riddle Warner was the eldest, 
made the group that gathered under the parental roof; 
in a home unknown to wealth, yet blessed with all the 
comforts of life and many of its luxuries. Thus, the 
subject of this memoir passed the years of his child- 
hood and youth. They were uneventful years, yet 
marked by the strong characteristic of affection for, and 
companionship with, his mother. No feature of his 
character stood forth more prominently than his devo- 
tion to her. 

As a boy, he was full of fun and youthful pranks. 
Yet no play could detain him when he felt his mother 
listened for his coming ; nor was any sport attractive 
that lacked the endorsement of this best friend of his 
childhood ; while to serve her, in any way, was his chosen 
pleasure. Thus friendship with one who was devout, 



REV. JOHN RIDDLE WARNER, D.D. 9 

wise, and strong formed a wide foundation upon which was 
builded the character of after-years. Duquesne College 
was the scene of his intermediate and later school-days, 
and Dr. Robert Bruce, whom he held in almost ador- 
able memory, the preceptor who made them " the royal 
road to learning." This college was afterwards merged 
into " The Western University of Pennsylvania," and 
was his Alma Mater, from whom he, many years later, 
received his degree of Doctor of Divinity. He gradu- 
ated on July 23, 1846, receiving the first honor of his 
class ; shortly after which he entered the Theological 
Seminary of the Associate Reformed Church. After 
filling several brief appointments at Pottstown, Phila- 
delphia, and Chambersburg, he was called to the united 
pastorate of Marsh Creek and Hunterstown, Pennsyl- 
vania, near Gettysburg, at which place was his home. 

Here began the tenderest affection that can exist, 
between a pastor and his flock. Sympathy and co- 
operation he found on every side, and his people ever 
ready to hold up the hands of their young pastor. The 
beauties of field and forest, as to visit them he drove 
through " God's first temples," were inspiring to a mind 
already meditative and poetical ; and though the strength 
of maturer years was, by and by, given to another field, 
it was always in terms of deep affection, touched often 
with pathos, that he would refer to the dear old friends of 
his first pastoral charge ; while of the country there he 
said, " It is the garden spot of the world !" It was here 
that his house first became a home. In the Cumberland 
Valley, about twenty-five miles from Gettysburg, lay the 
quaint old farm of " Locust Hill." This was the home 



IO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 

of William Craig and his wife, Mary Vance Watson, 
whose daughter Jean he sought and won for his 
bride. 

Surrounded by the blue Cumberland Mountains, and 
adorned with apple-blossoms, it was itself a bridal 
picture on the 2d of May, i860, the day they were 
married. Romance never portrayed a marriage more 
ideal than this one proved to be. The character of Jean 
Craig, or " Jennie," as she was better known, was 
deeply spiritual, and strong in affection, mingled with 
ready wit and the rarest good sense. By nature she 
was a born home-maker; by grace a loving, eager 
participant in her husband's work. 

Royal helpmates one to the other, nothing was bur- 
densome that was his duty to perform and hers to 
assist. Yet it was but the 30th of September, 1863, the 
anniversary of her husband's birth, and also of their 
betrothal, until their work together was finished. In 
the July preceding, the battle of Gettysburg was fought ; 
which battle, with its more deadly after-math, was the 
indirect cause of her death. Between the contending 
forces lay the town, which for three days was covered 
with the pall of battle-smoke that hung from an arch 
of shot and shell hurled by either side against the 
other. 

In the midst was Dr. Warner's home ; yet it, in the 
providence of God, was, with many another, mercifully 
protected from " the terror by night and the arrow that 
fiieth by day." Below is given an extract from one of 
Mrs. Warner's letters, written to her brother at this 
time. 



REV. JOHN RIDDLE WARNER, D.D. 1 1 

From Mrs. Warner to her brother, Mr. Hugh Craig: 

" You have heard of the fearful scenes lately enacted in 
and around our town. We were here during the three 
terrible days of fighting, and, strange to tell, escaped 
uninjured. During the severest part of the battle we 
took refuge in the cellar. The town lay between the 
two armies, or rather, was the centre front of the rebel 
forces. Many men and animals were killed in the 
streets. I will not attempt a description of our experi- 
ence, for I have not power to convey what we saw and 
felt during those terrible days. It was then, in that 
awfully dark time, though, that we learned more fully 
to trust in the Lord. The rebels repulsed our men on 
Wednesday, the first day of the battle, and got possession 
of the town. They retained it until Friday, when in the 
clouds of the night they took up their march towards 
the Potomac. Many persons have suffered sadly : houses 
were plundered, and money and watches demanded, at 
the point of the revolver. We were on the point of 
leaving, but were providentially detained. Awful as it 
was here, amid the rain of bullets and bursting of shells 
over our heads, it would have been yet more terrible to 
go out, as so many did ; and before the battle began there 
was no opportunity to leave. For a long time after the 
invasion we felt great anxiety concerning you, and deeply 
sympathize with you in the heavy loss you have sustained. 
During the battle, we were most mercifully preserved 
from depredations of any sort ; nor did our house suffer 
damage from the flying missiles. I might tell you much 
more, but the town is full of strangers aiding our citi- 



12 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 

zens to alleviate the sufferings of the wounded, and our 
house is filled with company ; more, indeed, than we can 
make comfortable, as we have had to make beds on the 
floor. There are perhaps twenty-five or thirty thousand 
of the wounded in the town and country around. Mr. 
Warner spends much of his time in the hospitals, 
ministering to the spiritual and temporal wants of the 
inmates. He has been away to-day in the country hos- 
pitals, waiting upon the Confederate wounded who were 
left in the houses and barns by the way when the army 
left. Many supplies have been sent in from abroad, but 
everything of the sort is scarce and high in price. In 
it all, however, we have the opportunity of meeting 
many pleasant friends that we are glad to see, as well as 
of extending our hospitality to entire strangers seeking 
a place to lodge." 

Greatly reduced in nervous vitality by the scenes 
above referred to, the author of this letter was an easy 
prey in the early autumn to the insidious attack of 
typhoid fever. Her loss, to the day of his own death, 
her husband mourned as irreparable. Those who sor- 
rowed with him would gladly have seen another take 
the place of the loved one, that he thereby might have 
been comforted. But by him the thought was not enter- 
tained. That second marriage brought happiness to 
some, he acknowledged, and said it would to him could 
opportunity bring him "another Jennie Craig." But 
he never sought it, for such another, he averred, " could 
not be ;" and for thirty years he walked on as one who 
treads alone. Four years he continued in the house that 



REV. JOHN RIDDLE WARNER, D.D. 1 3 

had been their home. Even the infant daughter, their 
first and only child, had to be sent to the care of others. 
Yet, with the fellowship of the Master, he was not alone. 
Bereft of human aid, he received help from " One that 
was mighty," and became to his people " a living epistle 
known and read of them ;" " a bright light that could not 
be hid ;" a clear fountain in whose depths might be read, 
" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." 

The great Physician was his healer; not after the 
fashion of earth, but by opening the Scriptures to him 
more and more abundantly, that he might believe, 
" The things which are seen and temporal" are " but for 
a moment ;" and might understand, as never before he 
had done, the reality of " The things which are not 
seen, but eternal in the heavens." The effervescence of 
youth was changed ; but no bitterness was seen in that 
fair face ; the beautiful light of patience shone from those 
trustful eyes ; blue like heaven above, and the emblem 
of truth. The firm chin, whose lines softened so easily 
when his heart was touched for others' woe, and the 
high, white forehead, was the Master's framework : " Pict- 
ures of silver" indeed ; while " apples of gold" were the 
words that fell from the lips. 

In June of 1867 he bade farewell to Gettysburg. The 
battle to which he had been an eye-witness had been 
the occasion of his delivering a lecture upon the subject. 
He was called upon to repeat it in many cities, — Phila- 
delphia, Pittsburg, Baltimore, Washington, Boston, and 
St. Louis among others. But it was in St. Louis that 
its delivery had the most momentous effect upon his 
subsequent life, for it was the remote cause of his 



14 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 

removal there. A call was extended to him, in the fall 
of 1866, from the Presbyterian Church of Kirkwood, a 
suburb of the city ; which call, though at first declined, 
was accepted when, in the spring of 1867, it was renewed. 
The winter intervening had proved rigorous, and his 
health had been so seriously threatened that, with the 
hope of prolonged usefulness, he chose to labor in a 
milder climate, and in July of that year removed to 
Kirkwood. As he himself confessed, his early work in 
the new field was done with many home-longings ; but 
love for Christ's sake to his people soon became love for 
their own sakes. 

Strong friendships were begun, that through eternity 
will praise the God who Himself is Love. Pastoral 
work became a delight, and home was found at many a 
fireside, where little children gladly heralded his coming, 
and soon learned that he who could laugh from the 
heart at their fun and frolic was also the best friend in 
whom to confide doubts and difficulties regarding re- 
ligious duty. Many there are, now men and women, 
who picture their " dear Mr. Warner" in the brightest 
scenes of their childhood, and who to-day, by such 
memories, are inspired to " live soberly, righteously, and 
godly in this present world," and to walk in those paths 
which in a happy experience he proved were " Ways of 
pleasantness and paths of peace." When first he went 
to Kirkwood, a small white parsonage was built for him 
at the farther side of the oak-grove in which his church 
stood. Built amid the green, with its peaked roof and 
porches covered by coral honeysuckle, there was no 
prettier picture than it. 



REV. JOHN RIDDLE WARNER, D.D. 1 5 

Sweet flowers grew there, and, though there was no 
mistress, from the two rooms of that little house — a 
study and a bedroom — memory-pictures of home-like 
cheer and hearty hospitality have been carried away in 
the hearts of many. 

The pastor's meals were served close by, and the 
homes and hearts of all his people were open to his 
coming ; while to " The Parsonage," in turn, his people 
loved to go ; and brother ministers from city homes oft 
resorted here to breathe pure air and listen to the songs 
of birds, — where they might hold sweet communion with 
the friend whom they knew only to love. Nor were 
little children strangers. The study walls were lined 
with books in dull bindings, but on the lowest shelf was 
a corner for illustrated bird-books, and with these the 
little ones kept company when conversation flagged. 
" Mr. Warner is the goodest man in all the zvorld," pleaded 
a wee visitor, who, having paid a stolen visit to the 
study, thus argued for release from those who would 
restore him to his family and deprive him of the pleasure 
he had found in the minister's precincts. 

It was in those days that association began to twine 
around that name which no change could loosen. " Dr. 
Warner" he may be to friends of later years, but in the 
hearts of the first members of his flock and of their chil- 
dren he will ever be enshrined as " Our Mr. Warner." 
After nine years the little parsonage took on new pro- 
portions. Once more the joys of home were to be his ; 
gladdened by the presence of his child: not in years 
fitted to be his companion, yet taught so to be by him, 
who could at once be father, mother, teacher, and friend, 



1 6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 

— the dearest and most intimate friend. — " Like as a 
father pitieth his children" was said of such as he. 
Would that all fathers were like him ! More full of 
meaning would the declaration be, " Like as a father 
pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear 
Him." Their home, one aptly called " The Wren's 
Nest," and the music of the birds without was not 
sweeter than that which for nine years more flowed 
within. Then came the marriage and departure of his 
daughter, followed, after a brief season, by the coming 
of an only sister of his wife, — Mrs. Eyster, the widow 
of the Hon. George Eyster, of Philadelphia. Bereft of 
her children and bowed under the weight of widowhood, 
she came to make her home here, and from a well-spring 
in the heart, against which death had no power, blessed 
each threshold where her shadow fell ; while from the 
home which, many years before, she herself had named 
" The Wren's Nest" proceeded a deeper, sweeter music 
than of old, even of songs in the night, from those who 
could in sorrow " make melody in their hearts unto 
God." It was about this time that the praise-notes of two 
little grandchildren entered into that melody. He who 
makes " all things work together for good to them that 
love God" brought child-love unmeasured to strew sweet 
roses upon paths which had been shaded by the myrtle 
and the cypress. Tiny feet now often pattered by the 
study door, offering to " Grandpa" the first temptation he 
had known for years, to neglect work for play ; and little 
hearts were open to the sweet teaching of good and 
holy things, that was his to give even while he played 
with him. Thus they in his daily walk and conversa- 



REV. JOHN RIDDLE WARNER, D.D. 1 7 

tion learned Jesus, and were to him a joy that was with- 
out alloy. " His walk and conversation !" Diamonds 
in the dew of summer and in the frosts of winter are not 
more radiant, yet not more intangible, than the beauty, 
the beneficence, of that daily walk and conversation. 
We cannot recount it in deeds of greatness, we cannot 
gather it to build monumental edifices. A bright picture 
recalled, a touch at one point and another, and human 
hands must be withdrawn, leaving memories of broken 
hearts bound up, of " the ignorant and those out of the 
way" being taught, of patience in tribulation, to fill in 
the rest, the greater part. Then perhaps others, too, will 
say, with one not his own church member, but who, un- 
observed, had for many years observed him, " He was 
more like the Christ-man than any one I ever knew," and 
they perhaps will follow him so far as he followed Christ. 

All unknown to him did the sorrow of his youth shine 
as a soft light from the Beyond upon all that he did. 
With the comfort whereby he himself was comforted he 
ministered to the sorrowing as few others knew how to 
do, and from his own heart taught them, as words alone 
would have failed to do, to " rejoice evermore," even 
while they mourned. 

Straightforward with all, and with but one aim in view, 
even the unconscious lines of face and form told of " an 
Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile." It was 
of him the President of Lindenwood College spoke 
when, one day in chapel meeting, he taught the power 
of the inner nature over the outer. Said he, " At our 
Board meeting I sat opposite a man whose face shone. 
A kindly, loving spirit illumined every feature, and I was 



1 8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 

so impressed with the thought of how the inner, spiritual 
nature could glorify form and feature that when I recall 
it I think of Moses in the presence of the Lord, when ' his 
face shone.' " His was indeed a shining face, yet none 
thought then, as that same friend said not many months 
later, " that so soon he was to see the King in His glory 
and awake in His likeness." As his life was passing its 
meridian no decline was noticeable, no faculty had failed. 
Life itself was becoming more than ever sweet, for sake 
of the buds of promise within his house, that expanded 
under his love and gracious influence as flowers do open 
to the sun. During the last six of the almost twenty- 
seven years he had ministered in Kirkwood these little 
ones grew before him, making those years, as he said 
one day, " the happiest six years of his life." " Little did 
I suppose, when Jennie was taken from me," he added, 
" that such happiness would ever come to me." It was 
only weeks after until that saying, so inadvertently made, 
was to be a treasure laid away, a testimony beyond all 
value. Large room was there then for the child-faith he 
had nourished to reach beyond and cling to the Father 
whom he who had gone had taught them was a very real 
Fatlier, and withal their " Best Friend." Lovingly and 
with deep conviction he had spoken the words often in 
their hearing, " Our Best Friend." Hand in hand, with 
one or both of them, had he approached the mercy-seat 
twice daily, and a natural sequence was it that those who 
had there knelt with him should now " lean hard" upon 
that Best Friend to whom he had gone, and that the 
little Marianne, born in his house and the apple of his 
eye, should pray, " Dear Lord, make our grandpa thy 



REV. JOHN RIDDLE WARNER, D.D. 19 

dearest angel. Do not let him stay sorry for us, but 
let him behold thy face, so that he shall be satisfied with 
thy likeness; and make him to go up and down from 
heaven to earth, like those angels that Jacob saw upon 
the ladder." 

In keeping, too, with all was it that his little name- 
sake, the elder of the two, should early in his bereave- 
ment waken, saying, " Mother, I saw grandpa ! He 
wasn't a preacher any more, but a king, and wore a 
long white robe, with fringes of beautiful pink that flew 
all the time. On his head was a crown, high with 
sparkles, that shone like diamonds. But his face smiled 
and was just the same! I said, 'Oh, grandpa!' and he 
stretched out his hand to me, when a little bird flew 
to him, and he fed it ; then it went away, and came back 
with its mate, and they sang to him." 

During the year 1893 sorrow had darkened "The 
Wren's Nest." The home-mother, Mrs. Eyster, had been 
called up higher, and of those who were left, sickness 
had laid low first one and then another, attacking none 
so grievously as the strong pillar upon whom each had 
leaned, perhaps too heavily, and to whom each, from the 
eldest to the least of the family, had looked for encour- 
agement in every work. Exempt from illness for long 
years, it was difficult to realize that he was stricken, or 
for a moment to think death could come to him whom 
age had scarcely touched, and who could so ill be 
spared. For a little the menace was withdrawn ; and, 
partially restored, Dr. Warner resumed his pulpit to 
preach with a power his people had not hitherto felt. 
When rallied upon his constant study, he replied with a 



20 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 

hidden fire that impressed his words forever, " I have 
more sermons to preach than I have Sabbaths to preach 
them in !" Physical strength returned at a slow pace, 
yet none apprehended its total loss, nor perceived that 
from that time forward his was a steady climbing up- 
ward, until, without a glance backward, he entered the 
heavenly portals. Lovingly had he labored in this 
chosen field in the years that had gone, and progress 
had marked them all. Various invitations had come to 
him to turn eastward once more, yet they served only to 
define more clearly his God-given place and work. The 
brick house of worship where for twenty years he had 
preached had, by June of 1889, given place to a larger 
one of stone, of beautiful proportions and appointments ; 
and here was celebrated, in 1892, the twenty-fifth anni- 
versary of this union between people and pastor, who 
had learned to call each other " Dearly Beloved." To 
" build for the house not made with hands, but eternal in 
the heavens," had been the pastor's motto and exhorta- 
tion while the new building grew ; and with that still 
his prayer, the sun shone never more full of promise 
than on that last New Year Day. But bright skies 
were only opening to receive their own. Scarcely was 
the year a month old when his last sermon was preached ; 
his subject, " Behold the Lamb of God." A Sabbath 
more, and he had made ready to preach, but the mes- 
sage of God was to come from the lips of another ; one 
Sabbath more, and the spirit was plumed for flight. The 
eyes growing dim for earth's scenes would in a little 
while, indeed, "Behold the Lamb of God." A slight 
pneumonia which " yielded to treatment," his illness at 



REV. JOHN RIDDLE WARNER, D.D. 21 

first was said to be. But Death all the while crept near. 
A few days of pain and sleepless nights ; of smiling 
faint gratitude to those who would fain have relieved his 
suffering, then a long deep sleep, and Death, unfeared, 
and in all human probability unrecognized by him, broke 
the bonds that held his spirit a prisoner on earth. The 
awakening from that sleep was in the eternal morning 
illumined by the presence of his God and Saviour, and 
Life — Life that was to be forever more — had conquered 
Death. As into the chamber of death his people came 
and beheld the form they loved, they wept. When they 
covered the couch whereon he lay with flowers, such as 
they in the years that had gone ever had been wont to 
bestow, they wept ; but for their own loss only. It was 
theirs to testify that here was " The gate of heaven and 
the house of God." Happy they who by him had been 
taught that, even here below, heaven is more precious 
than tangible things; and that "forever with the Lord" 
is Life — not Death. Happy they who, in the midst of 
their own sorrow, sat in the radiance of the light that at 
his going streamed back to earth. One more journey 
back to beloved Gettysburg, and the precious dust had 
finished earth's pilgrimages. Upon that historic hill, 
with the dead who counted not their lives dear, it rests, 
and by the form of his beloved " Jennie Craig" awaits 
the summons when " the dead in Christ shall rise first." 



" Walk about Zion, and go round about her : tell the 
towers thereof. Mark ye well her btdwarks, consider her 
palaces ; that ye may tell it to the generation follozving. 
For this God is our God for ever and ever : he will be our 
guide even unto death!' — Psalm xlviii. 12, 13, 14. 

In the history of churches as of states there are 
important periods like high commanding points in a 
journey, on which it is well to pause and look backward 
as well as forward. That our future may excel our past 
is always the desire of true wisdom : therefore we need 
to cherish the remembrance of success as well as of 
defeat, and study the true cause of each. In the one 
case it inspires with courage, in the other it sounds the 
note of warning, while all alike tend to fix our faith and 
strengthen a sense of dependence on Him whose com- 
mand is, " Remember all the way which the Lord thy 
God led thee, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know 
what was in thine heart." For this purpose is it that the 
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church has called 
on its pastors to note this year, which completes a cen- 
tury under its present organized form. It was in the 
May of 1788 that the representatives of sixteen Presby- 
teries came together to determine upon an ecclesiastical 
constitution similar in doctrine and government to that 

23 



24 SERMON I. 

of the Church of Scotland. It was one of the events of 
that eventful period, destined by the Head of the Church 
to perform a blessed part in the establishment of the new 
nation. 

This body of men represented almost the entire terri- 
tory crimsoned by the blood of the Revolution ; and of 
themselves, the most were fresh from the field, browned 
and battle-scarred. Seven long years they had fought ; 
not for dominion, not for the pride either of place or of 
power, but for those divinely implanted principles, those 
very instincts of right, civil and ecclesiastical, which form 
part of the veiy being, of those possessed of that liberty 
whereby Christ makes His people free. They have a 
noble ancestry and constituency. In their veins ran the 
blood of the martyrs of two centuries and more. Their 
fathers' history for generations was linked with that of 
Huguenots, Hollanders, Scotch, Scotch-Irish, and Dis- 
senters; all holding substantially the same faith, and the 
faith of all sorely tested, but mightily strengthened by 
the floods and the fires of a long and a cruel persecution. 
That was, by the planting of the Lord, the seed sown in 
the New World. No wonder that the harvests were 
here what they were ; nor any wonder that down to this 
day we can see the fruit of such planting to be what it is. 
In the year 1787 they saw the fruit of their struggles and 
the consummation of their hopes in the adoption of the 
Constitution of the States. The year following they met 
to frame the Constitution of their Church. The two doc- 
uments, though wisely intended to operate independently 
of the other, the one civil, the other ecclesiastical, yet 
were so similar in spirit, and they so surely trended to 



SERMON I. 25 

the accomplishment of the same ends, as to arouse the 
well-founded suspicion that some of the same hands had 
been employed at both. When Gladstone pronounced 
the "American Constitution the most wonderful work 
ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose 
of man," that great man only voiced the sentiment of 
many another, good and as great as himself. The secret 
of its power lay in the fact that the aim of so many of 
its framers was to have the principles of the golden rule 
running like a golden thread through the entire frame- 
work of the new government. Our claim is that the 
Constitution of the Church to which we adhere was but 
the expression in human form of the teaching of the New 
Testament ; the foundation of the apostles and prophets ; 
Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone: the 
very same of which, of old, " Zion heard, and was glad ; 
and the daughters of Judah rejoiced." 

It seems as if this Psalm were written for the days of 
a hundred years ago, and for us as we review the in- 
tervening scenes. Let us with humble and thankful 
hearts note the towers and mark some of the bulwarks 
of our Zion. But far be it from us to-day to fall under 
the just condemnation of a denominational pride. The 
resources of the Presbyterian Church in our land, and 
its power for good, all must admit are beyond com- 
putation. Have her works equalled her powers ? A 
true answer to this will completely suppress all spirit of 
denunciational glorifying to-day. Whatever we are we 
owe not to ourselves, but to Him who is known in our 
palaces for a refuge. What are some of the bulwarks by 
which our Zion has been strengthened ? First, the prin- 
3 



26 SERMON I. 

ciple of our Church government; the government of the 
people; no pastor high or low, no theological teacher, 
nor any elder in the entire Church, but holds his place 
only by the will, the suffrages of the people ; nor is this 
all : while with sister denominations we hold that the 
voice of a majority is the voice of the Church, we also 
claim that our Constitution protects the rights of a mi- 
nority as it is not protected in any other form of church 
government. Under prejudice or passion the voice of a 
majority, as we all know, may be the voice of tyranny. 
To guard the right of every individual, even the hum- 
blest member may by appeal, take his or her case 
through every court, from a church session up to the 
General Assembly. One of the bulwarks of our Church 
consists in this, — that the right of the individual is as 
vigilantly protected, as that of the entire body is plainly 
asserted. Archbishop Hughes, of the Roman Catholic 
Church in America, thus speaks of the General Assem- 
bly : " Though it is my privilege to regard the authority 
exercised by the General Assembly as usurpation, still I 
must say, with every man acquainted with the mode in 
which it is organized, that for the purposes of popular 
and political government its structure is little inferior to 
that of Congress itself. In any emergency that may 
arise, the General Assembly may produce a uniformity 
among its adherents to the farthest boundaries of the 
land. It acts on the principle of a radiating centre, and 
is without an equal or a rival among the other denomi- 
nations of the country." No Presbyterian could better 
have expressed the truth, and surely from such a source 
it comes with no taint of partiality. Much to the same 



SERMON I. 27 

effect could be quoted from other sources as able, and 
who are certainly more in sympathy with us, among 
whom are Gladstone, Bancroft, Motley, Ranke, Froude, 
Stanley, and especially, of our own land, Dr. Curry, the 
historian of the Methodist Church, as honest and un- 
biassed as he is deservedly eminent. In marking the 
bulwarks of our Zion you must not, therefore, overlook 
the true principles of her government. But note, 

Second. Another element of her strength. She owns 
no alliance with or subjection to any earthly or political 
power. While she has ever held it her duty to uphold 
the state with all her moral power in the righteous exer- 
cise of the prerogatives of the state, she asks nothing, and 
in return will take nothing, save the protection of the 
state in the exercise of the rights of conscience, as those 
rights involve none other than the rights of her own 
adherents. This principle it was, which made her 
history through three centuries crimsoned as it is. 
But it made it a morally grand history, and its issues 
worth all they cost. Three hundred years have passed 
since that day on which Knox pleaded before Mary of 
Scotland on behalf of his suffering people. " Think 
you," asked the queen with indignant amazement, — 
" think you that subjects having the power may resist 
their princes?" "Yes, madam; if princes exceed their 
bounds, no doubt they may be resisted with power." * 

* " For no greater honor or obedience is to be given to princes than God 
has ordained to be given to father and mother. But the father may be 
struck with a frenzy in which he would slay his children. Now, madam, 
if the children arise, join together, apprehend the father, take the sword 
from him, bind his hands, and keep him in prison till the frenzy be over, 



28 SERMON I. 

" Thus spoke Calvinism," writes Froude, " the creed 
of republics ;" and says the same pen, speaking of the 
same occasion, " thus stood the representation of all that 
was best in Scotland." It was quite fitting that two cen- 
turies later the lineal descendant of that same Knox 
should stand in the Continental Congress and, with the 
inherited fire of the old reformer, plead for the very same 
principles, — the creed of this republic. Whose blood 
is so sluggish as not to flow faster and warmer as he 
reads the soul-stirring debates of those wonderful days 
from June 28 until July 4, 1776 ? Who is he with broad 
Scotch accent who not ten years before had quitted 
his native country to preach the gospel of his Saviour in 
this, and now with all the fervor of his great ancestors, 
on behalf of his adopted country, stands in rank with 
Otis, Adams, and Henry, interceding for the adoption 
of that declaration which recognized human right in the 
new light of God's own law ? It was Dr. John Wither- 
spoon, the hoary-headed, faithful, fearless servant of God. 
God spared him to see the desire of his heart accom- 
plished, and the year succeeding that of the adoption of 
the National Constitution he presided as Moderator of 
that Assembly when was adopted the Constitution of 
the Presbyterian Church of America. It was the inten- 
tion of many to frame it after the Constitution of the 



think you, madam, that the children do any wrong? Even so is it with 
princes that would murder the children of God that are subject to them. 
Their blind zeal is nothing but a mad frenzy, therefore to take the sword 
from their hands, to bind, and to cast them into prison till they be brought 
to a more sober mind, is no disobedience against princes, but true obedi- 
ence, because it agreeth with the will of God." 



SERMON I. 29 

Church of Scotland. They went farther and did a work 
still better. The Church of Scotland never entirely- 
sundered her alliance with the Crown ; the Presbyterian 
Church of America from the first resolved to know no 
power between herself and Jesus Christ, her Head and 
King. From this principle, one of the bulwarks of our 
Zion, we hold that, as a body, she has never departed. 
Times of great excitement have surely tried her on this 
point, but her strength lies in the fact that while her 
mission is to attack sin in every quarter, whether govern- 
mental or private, her reliance is solely on her Spiritual 
King. Resisting all political interference, she refuses 
every political alliance. In proof of what we say note 
how those very men who, when they saw their object 
gained, their rights secured, dropped at once from view in 
the councils of state, and were found only in that sphere of 
operation to which God had called them. To this day 
it is so, and so it will ever be, that they who serve their 
God first, serve their state the best. In marking as one 
of the strong bulwarks of our Church her independence 
of all save Jesus her Head, we must notice the instru- 
mentality with which by her King she has been fur- 
nished. This we could not state better than in the words 
of the text from which Dr. Witherspoon, the first Moder- 
ator, preached the sermon on the opening of that Assem- 
bly : " Neither is he that planteth anything, neither he 
that watereth ; but God that giveth the increase." It 
was just the theme the times needed, and ever since 
have needed, and it gave the key-note of miniscerial 
success. To be made to know, and honestly confess the 
need of power from on high, is but the precursor of that 



30 SERMON I. 

power. Never in all the history of this continent was a 
pure gospel in its divine power more needed than in the 
period from the outbreak of the war until the beginning 
of this century. 

The new spiritual life awakened years before under 
the preaching of Edwards, Whitefield, and Wesley had 
well-nigh died out. The Methodist Church which since 
with its enthusiastic work for the Master has grown into 
four millions, had then in this land but come into being. 
The passions aroused by the war, and the controversies 
which preceded it, as well as the demoralization that is 
almost the inevitable consequence of camp life, had had 
a fearful effect on the moral and spiritual life of the 
people. Infidelity was never more defiant. As France 
had rendered such valuable assistance in the time of 
our great extremity, and because of enthusiasm for La- 
fayette and Gallican liberty, the infidelity of France was 
welcomed by many leading men, while Paine's "Age 
of Reason" was doing its deadly work. It was the day, 
says a writer of the time, when " boys that dressed flax 
in the barn read Tom Paine and believed in him ; the 
day when he was kept on the work-bench of the 
mechanic, to be read in moments of leisure." With 
many of the higher class intemperance, profanity, gam- 
bling, and licentiousness were common. The ministry of 
that day formed a small but a brave, faithful, and heroic 
band, many of whom by their own toil sustained them- 
selves, while with ungloved hands they grappled with 
the enemy. What was the result? God so blessed 
the faithful preaching of His word, that the century in 
its beginning was like the sun after days of storm and 



SERMON I. 31 

nights of darkness, rising in his brightness upon an 
almost cloudless sky. Not only was the enemy bravely 
met, and in some of his strongholds vanquished, but 
one of the greatest revivals in the history of the Church 
swept over the land. Though all the powers of the 
adversary then seemed summoned into action, and with 
the good seed, tares were also sown, yet so great was 
that outpouring on the Church that to this day its 
blessed effects are felt. It was a glorious work whose 
standard of doctrine is condensed in this : The free 
sovereign grace of God to sinful, perishing men, accord- 
ing to the eternal purpose in Christ Jesus. Some who 
understand little of the history and less of the truth to 
which our Church adheres, have assumed to pronounce 
our system a bundle of effete old forms, which have 
served their day, but are no longer needed. When 
Christ, in the fulness of His grace, is no longer needed 
for a poor, lost soul ; when the enlightening, elevating 
power of His gospel to raise a world from misery and 
crime is no longer needed ; when the soul utters no cry 
in trouble, and feels no need of His hand in death, then 
— but not till then — will the system of truth preached 
two hundred years ago throughout our land be needed 
no longer. The memories of the men who preached 
it with such unselfish singleness of aim and such blessed 
fruits are still fragrant throughout the Church. In the 
best sense of the word they were "pioneer" preachers. 
After the preparation and adoption of an address to 
General Washington, their very first act was the adop- 
tion of a resolution instructing each Synod under its 
care to recommend to the next Assembly " two minis- 



32 SERMON I. 

ters qualified to be employed in missions on our frontier." 
The frontier ? Where was it then ? and how far back in 
the wilderness then untraversed, was the spot on which 
here we stand ! But to the frontier they were sent. 
Thus with the very infancy of the Church commenced 
the work of Home Missions. A blessed work to all the 
land. Then the churches were directed to take meas- 
ures for their support. They responded to their best 
ability, and with what result ? Eight hundred and fifty- 
two dollars. Do you smile at the sum ? Pause a 
moment. Few in number, no help now from the 
mother-country, their farms desolated, and many of 
their churches destroyed, in the war, their currency 
sadly depreciated, and yet in their poverty they collect- 
ing eight hundred and fifty-two dollars to give the 
gospel to those more desolate than themselves, and for 
the evangelization of the Indians ! From year to year 
the work increased, until in 1816 was established the 
Board of Home Missions, to all this land and to genera- 
tions yet unborn one of the most blessed of human 
appointments. Its first report to the Church told of 
eight hundred and fifty-two dollars collected. Its last 
report, a hundred years later, told nine hundred thousand 
two hundred and seventy-eight dollars. At first there 
were few to send, about ten, and not very far to send 
them ; now the field extends from Maine to Alaska and 
from the Lakes to the Gulf, while the laborers number 
sixteen hundred and sixty-three. Soon did the Church 
learn that in proportion as she widened the field she 
multiplied her labors. Almost simultaneously with the 
building of a church she built the school-house ; she ever 



SERMON I. 33 

strove to educate the head while she won the heart. 
Hence her Board of Education for a thoroughly fur- 
nished ministry ; hence her institutions of learning, with 
which the land is dotted, and within a few years the 
establishment of a Board of Aid for schools and colleges. 
But as she grew in the knowledge of her Lord, a con- 
sciousness also grew of a debt she owed to the millions 
of the morally dark regions afar off. Here, too, her 
beginnings were small, but her conquests in number and 
character who can tell? Among the very choicest of 
her sons and her daughters she gave to the foreign field, 
and some to a cruel sacrifice. But see her trophies here 
for Jesus. They are mirrored by the Nile as well as the 
Mississippi, by the Ganges as well as the Orinoco and 
the Amazon. She has built her altars beside the pago- 
das of China, and in the very shadow of the temples of 
India, while the islands of the South Seas join in the 
chorus k that rises to the Lamb that was slain, who hath 
redeemed them to God by His blood. Almost every 
nation of the world now is receiving the life-giving testi- 
mony of the Presbyterian Church of America. It is but 
fifty years since the organization of the present Board of 
Foreign Missions. The Church's contribution that year 
was twenty-one thousand four hundred and ninety-nine 
dollars. Then in foreign fields it supported eleven mis- 
sionaries and twenty-six assistants. Last year that 
Board reported seven hundred and eighty-four thousand 
one hundred and seventy-four dollars received, and a 
force of ministers and teachers numbering fifteen hun- 
dred and forty-three. Fifty years ago none dreamed that 
to-day such a history could be written. Such a marvel 



34 SERMON I. 

of enduring toil, of patient waiting, of heroic martyr- 
dom, and of unparalleled success. Equally wonder- 
ful is that branch of the work entitled " Zenana work," 
the field in which, according to Eastern laws, woman 
only can operate. In 1871 the women of the Church 
for this work gave seven thousand dollars ; for fifteen 
years those contributions increased thirty-two-fold, — in 
1886 reporting two hundred and twenty-four thousand 
dollars. Surely in devout thankfulness may we mark 
the bulwarks of our Zion, and tell of God's wonder to 
the generation following. One hundred years ago ours 
was a little Church, — one hundred and seventy-eight 
ministers, eighteen thousand communicants ; now it has 
five thousand six hundred and fifty-four ministers and 
seven hundred thousand communicants. Then its mis- 
sionary contribution amounted to eight hundred and 
fifty-two dollars. Now for purposes of general benevo- 
lence outside of congregational support the Church 
reports last year three million one hundred and ninety- 
six thousand four hundred and fifty-eight dollars. We 
are sometimes amazed at the wonderful increase of the 
population of the country, during the last century fifteen- 
fold. How much more wonderful the increase of but 
one branch of the Church of Christ, thirty-eight-fold in 
the same period ! We have noted only the most conspic- 
uous features in our Church's history, and that not to 
glory in them, not to foster a denominational pride, but 
to consider what, had we fully met our duty, we might 
have been ; and that all glory may be ascribed to Him 
who, notwithstanding our failures, has been with us over 
all, and in all, the Alpha and Omega of our faith and 



SERMON I. 35 

our history. As we look back we see many a page in 
our history which should humble us, — strifes and conten- 
tions, so unworthy the followers of the Lamb. These 
memories should be our admonition, while the century 
about to close looks down upon us with so many tokens 
of the mercy and loving-kindness of Him whom to-day 
we praise. He bids us to-day to review the past, and 
from that review take courage for the future. He bends 
His ear to hear our devout acknowledgment; He inspires 
Himself the words of the Psalm of to-day : " We have 
thought of thy loving-kindness, O God, in the midst of 
thy temple. According to thy name, O God, so is thy 
praise unto the ends of the earth. Walk about Zion, 
and go round about her : tell the towers thereof. Mark 
ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces ; that ye may 
tell it to the generation following. For this God is our 
God for ever and ever : He will be our guide even unto 
death." 



II. 

" This book of the lazv shall not depart out of thy mouth; 
but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou 
may est observe to do according to all that is written therein : 
for then shalt thou make thy way prosperous, and then shalt 
thou have good success!' — Joshua i. 8. 

This is a part of the charge given to Joshua as he was 
about to enter upon the work committed to his hands at 
the death of Moses. He was successor in a wonderful 
work to a wonderful man. His was a continuation, but 
it differed from that of him who went before, and it 
differed just as decidedly from that of any who should 
come after. Moses had been the agent of divine deliv- 
erance to a race of bondmen ; of divine legislation to a 
nation of free-men. He was the hand of God, as guide, 
during one of the most eventful periods in human his- 
tory. Egypt, the Red Sea, Sinai, and the wilderness 
were in the past. Another work for another workman 
lay beyond the Jordan. The work of Joshua was es- 
sentially different from that of Moses, and involved equal 
perils, equal responsibilities, and for faithfulness therein 
he had assurance of an equally glorious reward. 

We always find a certain kind of satisfaction — almost 
a fascination — in reading Biblical biographies, but we 
are apt to forget that, though under greatly changed cir- 
36 



SERMON II. 37 

cumstances, they are being reproduced in ourselves. 
We are each doing a work which is but a continuation 
of that which was begun before us, and by some one 
will be taken up after us. The workmen die, but the 
work goes on. No man, not even a Moses, is so impor- 
tant that he cannot be spared. Every man's work, too, 
is his own, a definite work ; yet there is infinite variety 
in the allotment ; and while the work progresses, if the 
eyes be but upward, the workman soon learns — and a 
blessed lesson it is — that obligation and privilege mean 
about the same thing. God presses His right to our 
service, and in pressing it makes every one who with a 
loyal heart enters the service know that our Father has 
a grand work for us each. Having made this world, 
bearing as it does so many marks of His glory in its 
creation, and with such evidence of His infinite love in 
the cost of its redemption from the curse of sin, it ever 
was His desire that in the execution of His glorious 
plans the work should be done, not by His enemies, but 
by His friends. And " no man has grasped the meaning 
of his existence until he comprehends himself as part of 
an infinite plan, reaching from the throne of God before 
all time to that throne when time shall be no more," — 
a plan which, as one has eloquently said, " is wide as 
eternity, glorious as Deity, and blessed as Heaven, has 
caught him in its measureless sweep." He can no more 
choose whether he will be under this claim and be part 
of this plan than whether he will be part of God's uni- 
verse. Here he is, and here and forever God's claim is 
upon him. When, at Horeb, to Moses God asserted His 
claim, His servant recognized it. But now his work is 



38 SERMON II. 

finished, and another is to appear upon the great theatre 
of action ; the work is ready for the man and the man is 
ready for the work. With the fascinating history of 
Joshua's great work and success we all are, or ought 
to be, familiar. The valor of his youth, the moral 
grandeur of his manhood, and the glory of his old age 
make a chapter to the charms of which creations of 
romance present no equal. In the charge given to 
Joshua, perpetuated in the verses of which our text 
forms a part, we have the secret, the promised out- 
come, and the conditions of his success. Let us look, 
first, at the meaning of what is here promised : " Then 
shalt thou make thy way prosperous, then shalt thou 
have good success ;" next, at the conditions upon which 
this success is obtained. 

Success in life is the great aim of all, but the attain- 
ment of a comparative few is that success of which 
the career of Joshua forms so illustrious an example. 
Of the men whose lives are recorded in this word, 
Joshua is one of those on whose character there is not 
left a single stain. He is held up before us as a man 
of the highest moral purpose, — unselfish in his aim, 
unflinching in his courage, undeterred in his duty by the 
most formidable adversaries, and yet accomplishing his 
aim with the most remarkable success, as well as crowned 
at last with the highest honor earth has to bestow. It 
is noteworthy that the word " success" occurs only once 
in the Bible, and that in the passage before us. In its 
highest, strongest sense, therefore, we link it with the 
career of Joshua, and accordingly should we have a clear 
understanding of what is meant by real success. Every 



SERMON II. 39 

one has some such ideal ; one who has risen from pov- 
erty to affluence, from the lowest obscurity to fame ; one 
who by his own inherent energy of character has at- 
tained a conspicuous place at the bar, or in the pulpit, or 
in the legislative halls of the nation. Yet our concep- 
tion of such prosperity may be very incomplete, as is 
witnessed by the confession of many of those very per- 
sons. Even a careless observer of what every day is 
passing can perceive that not everything called prosperity 
means success. A man can prosper in nearly all he 
aims at, and yet his life in the highest sense be a com- 
plete failure. In the Psalms of David we are warned, 
"Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his 
way;" "the ungodly, who increase in riches." Of them 
Solomon speaks : " The prosperity of fools," saith he, 
" shall destroy them." It is all-important, therefore, that 
all, especially those on the threshold of life, should have 
right conceptions of this matter. One of the most 
prominent faults of the age is the worship of mere 
popular success. The consequence is that we are so 
often grossly unfair in our estimate of what we call " fail- 
ures." Here are two men : one conscientious, industrious, 
unselfish, honest; on whom neither poverty nor suffer- 
ing can practise any arts that corrupt his integrity. 
The other, from nothing has sprung to a large estate ; 
all the dazzling appliances of wealth sparkle around 
him, but in all he sees nothing save for himself. As 
much as man can live (and die, too), he lives and dies to 
himself. Which of these is the really successful life? 
and which, even among men, even in this life, commands 
the highest respect ? A life of continual self-sacrifice in 



40 SERMON II. 

the interests of his people and the cause of his God 
was that of the man who led the hosts of Israel into the 
land God had given to their fathers, and to whom He had 
given command to possess in His name. Fully eighty- 
years old when he received his commission, he could 
look back upon a life which day by day, from the night 
he left the brick-yards of Egypt until he stood upon the 
banks of the Jordan, had been educated for a definite 
work, from his view concealed though it had been until 
the time for assumption of leadership had come. His 
was a definite work ; so is every man's. Noah had his, 
and Abraham his. Joseph was God's conspicuous in- 
strument for an especial epoch in patriarchal history. 
Moses was to deliver Israel from bondage and lead them 
to the borders of Canaan ; Joshua, to take possession of 
the inheritance and divide the land among the tribes. It 
was so in later days. David was to complete the con- 
quest of the kingdom, and Solomon to build the temple. 
Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, and Peter had his 
mission to the Jews. Do you say, " Our work is not like 
these. We have no divine call." To question thus is 
often our great mistake. Every individual has his or her 
vocation. The infinite diversity in gifts and qualifications 
as distributed through the human family tells of the in- 
finite wisdom of Him who assigns to each his work, with 
the requisite qualifications for it. It is wise, therefore, in 
every parent to subordinate his wishes or preferences in 
the choice of an occupation or profession for his child 
to the intellectual bent of the individual, yet all the while 
to train the subject to the highest possible moral stand- 
ard. It is equally incumbent on every one to ask him- 



SERMON II. 41 

self, in the language of Paul on the day of his conversion, 
" Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" It seemed as if 
on that day the mantle of Joshua had fallen on the new 
apostle. Choice in service had no place in his thought ; 
it was only in what service could he best glorify his 
Lord. In this we find the secret of the success both of 
the leaders of the Israelites, and of the apostle to the 
Gentiles. A great aid and comfort it is to any one to 
have thus clearly before him the end and aim of his en- 
deavor. It saves time and husbands strength. It gives 
a standard by which to measure the importance of ap- 
parent duties. Many things come up in social and busi- 
ness spheres respecting which we are often in doubt. If, 
with a definite idea of our work, we keep an eye single 
to it, we can easily and naturally ask, " Will this help or 
hinder it ?" On this basis we can easily decide. When 
Nehemiah was at his work on the walls of Jerusalem, 
his ability and readiness to say, " I cannot come down," 
and to say it four times over, delivered him from his 
foes. Said he, " I am doing a great work, so that I 
cannot come down ; why should the work cease, whilst 
I leave it, and come down to you ?" 

After definiteness of aim, the next element in a suc- 
cessful life is to do the work thoroughly. It requires 
no argument to prove that this, under divine guidance 
and with divine help, was the secret of Joshua's suc- 
cess, in his great career. So is it of every truly success- 
ful life. No man who attains greatness in any sphere 
ever comes to it by doing things either with half a heart 
or by spasmodic efforts. The experience of daily life 
proves that the attainment of our aims does not depend 
4 



42 SERMON II. 

upon ourselves alone ; yet the experience of almost all 
will bear me out when I say that the young man who is 
more concerned about his work than his wages is the one 
who is sure to rise, who is always in demand, and who 
eventually will command his own price. Amid the activi- 
ties of our times, in no sphere whatever are there garlands 
for indolence, or honors for imperfect service, or rewards 
for what people call tortuous integrity. It is related of 
the celebrated Faraday that when quite a lad he applied 
to Sir Humphry Davy for a situation at the Royal In- 
stitute. Sir Humphry told one of his colleagues that 
he had received a letter from a lad who attended his 
lectures asking for employment, and demanded of his 
friend what answer should be made. " Set him to wash 
bottles," was the reply. " If there be anything in him, 
he'll do it thoroughly." The proposition was approved. 
The future great chemist did his humble work so well 
that soon he was put to better work, and went from 
better to better until all men felt that the name of Far- 
aday was an ornament even to the Royal Institute. 
His was a morally grand, conscientious career. But 
a sad mistake it is to pursue any mere worldly aim as 
the sine qua non of a successful life. It may be pur- 
chased at the cost of self-respect, as well as the respect 
of our fellows, of a clear conscience, and of an immortal 
hope. A sad bargain it is when thus it comes. There 
is a sentiment which a great poet puts into the mouth of 
one of his characters, a sentiment which men everywhere 
and always applaud, and which strictly accords with the 
letter and spirit of the Divine Word : 



SERMON II. 43 

'Tis not in mortals to command success; 

But we'll do more, Sempronius, — we'll deserve it." 



" Deserve it," — ah, yes ! But did it come only by our 
own deserts, unaided by divine help, who could win that 
which in the eyes of the God of Joshua, and of our God, 
could alone be pronounced true, good success? 

This brings us to consider the conditions on which, in 
the language of the text, " shalt thou make thy way 
prosperous, and have good success." Those conditions 
are, " This book of the law shall not depart out of thy 
mouth ; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, 
that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is 
written therein." Here we do not forget that the human 
will has a natural repugnance to submission to absolute 
authority. 

Our Heavenly Father, well knowing what is in man, 
never presents His claim as grounded upon this alone. 
At the foot of the mountain, while Moses was gone up 
within the cloud, Joshua heard the law as, amid the ter- 
rors of Sinai, it came from the Father's lips. But there 
he heard the declaration of the divine love to which 
he had himself been witness before he heard the law, " I 
am the Lord thy God, which hath brought thee out of 
the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage." 
Our God never treats us like the unmerciful servant who 
grasped his debtor by the throat, saying, " Pay me that 
thou owest." The obedience here enjoined upon us all 
as the condition of true prosperity finds its nearest 
earthly symbol in the fond, free-hearted trust of a little 
child. There is a notable passage in the Second Book 



44 SERMON II. 

of Kings, given in connection with the coronation of 
the young King Jehoash. It is written, " And Jehoiada 
brought forth the king's son and put the crown upon 
him, and gave him the testimony. And they clapped 
their hands, and said, God save the king." He put the 
crown upon him and gave him the testimony. So when 
God gave Joshua the greatest commission which, next 
to Moses, mortal had yet received, he put the book of 
the law into his hands. He took it as from a loving 
father ; he took it in the simplicity of a childlike trust ; 
hence the record of his unfaltering faith, his matchless 
heroism, his wisdom in council, and his valor before the 
foe, — in short, as the text hath it, his " good success." 
Joshua's Bible, as one has well said, compared with ours, 
was a very small one. He had only the Pentateuch. 
But God would have him use well what he had. The 
text indicates that in three ways he was to use it : I. He 
was to meditate on it day and night. 2. He was not to 
let it depart out of his lips. 3. He was to practise it in 
his daily life. That is the way for every one to use his 
Bible. Treasure it in the heart. Let it control your 
lips and regulate your daily action. By close adherence 
to this triple counsel a happy, prosperous, successful life 
is insured. The conditions laid down to Israel's leader 
have not been annulled. 

A fearless, inflexible purpose to do God's will through 
study of and meditation upon God's Word is yet the 
groundwork of true prosperity. 

Many a victorious general, many a man from the busy 
marts of trade, has testified that to the Bible he owes his 
success. 



SERMON II. 45 

We do not say that piety invariably takes a man from 
the crowd and crowns him with a victor's wreath, but, 
even as regards his worldly interests, it is undoubtedly 
true that he who enters upon life imbued with a sense of 
his accountability to God, purposing to act under His 
eye, and is gladdened and supported with the joys and 
hopes of the religion of Jesus, has untold advantage 
over one who has no faith whatever. Remember that 
Joshua never attained his high place among ancient 
worthies by using his Bible as many do. By constant 
familiarity with it, his very blood, as it were, became 
inoculated with divine truth. Doubtless he had access 
to other sources of information, but the fountain-head was 
to him above all. Do as he did, and God's Word will 
soon cease to be the dry, heavy book so many think it is. 
To many of the brightest intellects of the world the 
Bible is the most interesting of all books. By them it is 
not taken up as a task when perhaps tired and sleepy, or 
when in a hurry to be off to something else ; nor read 
with the thought so far off that the page can be read 
twice without knowing anything that is in it. Read it as 
God gave it to be read, according to the rule prescribed 
to Joshua, and it will be to you a new book, — unlike all 
others in that you will never weary of it. And in perilous 
times and dark days, when all others are bereft of charm, 
it will show to you an open gate and the Heavenly 
Father waiting to receive you to joys by it foretold and 
by Christ's own blood purchased for you. For the life 
that is, not grievous are His commands. " Length of 
days, and long life, and peace shall they add to thee;" 
but the greater part of life yet awaits us. And what it 



46 SERMON II. 

is in kind and in desire here, it must be hereafter. The 
same souls that here are ours will be ours across the 
Jordan. How greatly, then, does it behoove us to bind 
His commandments upon our fingers and to write them 
upon our hearts, that when we come into the presence of 
Him who Himself is " The Word," it may be with re- 
joicing and not with shame ; not as aliens, but as friends, 
as children of His eternal covenant ! 



III. 

" And Enoch walked with God : and was not; for God 
took him." — Genesis v. 24. 

" A piece of dry reading," you are apt to say, is this 
chapter, containing only the genealogy of the patriarchs. 
" Only their genealogy !" Were it nothing more than 
that, it were surely a useless record. Nothing is here, 
where all is penned by the Father's hand, that is without 
its uses to us for time and eternity. For any time, the 
truth contained in this text would come with the lessons 
which we daily need. To-day their solemn import makes 
them especially appropriate. 

The moment which separated the years 1889 and 1890 
has come and gone, and we would be either more or less 
than human did not we feel more than an ordinary sense 
of awe this day. Many things remind us that we have 
entered upon a new period in the portion allotted us 
by Him in whose hand are our times, our breath, and all 
our ways. As here we stand and look back, we know 
that to none of us have any two of our years been pre- 
cisely alike. Some have had comparatively few days of 
shade and of darkness ; over others the clouds of sorrow 
have hung deep and long. Yet, amid all the changes 
and the varied scenes, the still, small voice of the Loving 
Father has been always heard ; the golden thread of His 

47 



48 SERMON III. 

love, through all the mazes of the intricate web, has been 
always seen. As with ancient Israel, so with us has it 
ever been. While for forty years He led them, and in all 
their circuitous route they never either retraced a step 
or once crossed a former path, yet always, wherever they 
moved or wherever they encamped, did He keep the 
symbol of the divine presence where every Israelite 
could see it. It was at once a guide and a support. 
What to them was a type is to us a reality; what to 
them was but a symbol is with us a living, loving sub- 
stance. And as now we have entered upon an untrodden 
way, a path concerning which God says to us, as He did 
to His ancient people, " Ye have not passed this way 
heretofore," we cannot but listen for the sound of the 
foot-beats of providences that this year await us ; we 
cannot put away the thought, " What shall be His 
messages, and of what sort His messengers ?" Yet 
we thank the Everlasting Father that we cannot tell. 
We know that we can go out into the opening year 
trusting in Him. It is well for us, in the first Sab- 
bath meditation of the year, to take a text which in 
memory can be easily borne, and which through all the 
coming days we may easily recall. Then let Walking 
with God be our theme, based on this brief biography of 
Enoch. He walked with God: and was not; for God 
took him. That it is suited alike to all generations — to 
New as well as to Old Testament times — is shown us at 
the very beginning, and almost at the very close, of the 
divine canon. Paul holds up this ancient believer both 
as a model and a conqueror, declaring, " By faith Enoch 
was translated that he should not see death ; and was 



SERMON III. 49 

not found, because God had translated him : for before 
his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased 
God. But without faith it is impossible to please him : 
for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and 
that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek 
him." 

Such a record could never have been written of any 
other than one in the highest sense of the word a repre- 
sentative man; a representative not of his own time or 
people only, but for all times ; a representative of the 
race. He stands amid a group of antediluvians, but, like 
Mont Blanc among the mountains, he looms above them 
all. And how is it? Was he by nature different from 
others, or fortunate above all others ? Was he born to a 
heavenly kingdom ? Nay. One, only one, was ever 
born and moved in this world free from sin, or by right 
inalienable to an inheritance in glory. Like all others, 
there was a period (with him it was a long period) in 
which Enoch walked only in the light of his own eyes, 
and often the counsel of his own heart. It is said he had 
lived sixty-and-five years, when Methusaleh was born. 
It is by no accident that after the close of sixty-five years 
the words " Enoch lived" are changed into the words 
" and Enoch walked with God." It is God's way, in 
those long-ago days, of expressing the change through 
which every one must pass who among God's glorified 
ones have received the testimony that they " pleased 
God." Sixty-five years of life, of earth, earthy ; three 
hundred of life in God, life with God, life like that of 
which Christ spoke to Nicodemus when he called it 
" being born again." The test of earthly greatness in 



50 SERMON III. 

that day was length of years. Measured by that, Enoch 
sinks far beneath any of his contemporaries. His physi- 
cal life is weaker than the physical lives of any around 
him. The days of his earthly pilgrimage cannot touch 
the longevity of any who went before nor of any that 
followed immediately after ; yet he has an immortality 
that belongs to none but himself; he is not reckoned 
among the dead. We may be helped by an earnest 
study of the record, so brief yet so comprehensive, to a 
life of holiness here and of happy immortality hereafter. 
Let us try to get a definite idea of that which lies cov- 
ered in the figure of " walking with God." It implies a 
habitual course of conduct, not an isolated act. A walk 
indicates more than a step, more than a number of steps. 
It is a way of life, and not a number of movements with 
long intervals between, but a constant progress in that 
way. At the very outset we are confronted with a mys- 
tery, a mystery inexplicable to many both of his day 
and ours. One word, as given by an apostle, solves it 
all, — Belief, Faith. " He that walketh with God must 
believe that he is." We can never walk, nor talk, nor 
hold any intercourse with an abstraction. And so we 
conclude that Enoch must have had as real a sense of 
the unseen and invisible God as ever Abraham had, or 
even Peter, James, or John, who walked and talked with 
God incarnate. This alone forms the explanation of the 
moral grandeur of his life. With the great thought of 
God by his side, duties became quickly understood and 
easily performed. What once had seemed all dark be- 
came bright as the light, while trials apparently insur- 
mountable as mountains melted into plains. How uni- 






SERMON III. 51 

form is that law which companionship with God writes on 
every human heart ! Prior to that day on which Enoch 
felt the great spiritual revolution, he had begun life's 
active duties, — had long been an Eastern householder. 
After the great change, after the manner of the devotees 
of his region and his time, shall we find that these com- 
mon duties of life are relinquished and an order above 
this life substituted? In beginning to walk with God, 
does he cease to walk with man ? All worldly expecta- 
tions as viewed from an earthly stand-point are com- 
pletely reversed. His life in its outward aspect differed 
little from the lives of those around. A walk with 
God does not lie over a different road from the common 
walk with men. The difference lies not in the road, but 
in the companionship ; not in the steps, but in the aim, 
the end, the motive, the spirit in which the steps are 
taken. To every one of us there is an allotted sphere. 
When the gracious change comes when we know Him 
and draw near to Him by whom that sphere has been 
allotted, the sphere rarely changes, but the man that 
fills it changes, and therefore no longer is it filled in 
the same way. You see two men engaged in the very 
same pursuits ; with heart and soul they have both en- 
tered their occupation ; they both are intensely busy. 
One is weaving the web of circumstance, of engage- 
ment, and of habit so around him that never was slave 
more fettered in chains and manacles than he. He 
walks and works in the lonely solitude of self, year by 
year the bonds strengthening and the solitude deepening. 
With the other there is the same earnestness of purpose, 
but the purpose is lofty. His sphere is unchanged, but 



52 SERMON III. 

the atmosphere of Heaven, because of his companion- 
ship, penetrates it, purifies it, arid as he breathes it, day 
by day and year by year, his very life is interwoven with 
the thought that the divine presence is " not far from 
any one of us," and that all we think, or say, or do in 
this life is valuable only because of its bearing on the 
next. Nothing in moral grandeur rises before us this 
day more resplendent than the business lives of Enoch 
and of Abraham. They shine with an undiminished 
lustre through all the intervening millenniums, because 
they have this record, that in every-day life they lived for 
God, conscious that they were accountable only to God ; 
and so it is written that " they pleased God." In this is 
constituted the true glory of the man. His character as 
a just man, or even as a benevolent and a generous man, 
is good as far as these qualities go ; but what of the im- 
mortality ? What of that time so rapidly hastening 
upon us all ? It is not separated from us by any gulf, 
nor even by a moment, but will, in fact, rise out of this, 
and will be its eternal prolongation, its eternal moral 
result. Would the thought but possess us with anything 
of its solemn weight that we have begun to live forever, 
we would find it ever with us to ask, " Am I in the 
right course of preparation for that endless life?" Some 
one has said that " business is itself religious to religious 
men." Profoundly true ! If a man doth walk with 
God, he walketh ever with Him ; a sacredness covers his 
entire course of action ; he finds that to live his life aright 
he cannot but live it in its entirety ; he must aim to live 
an undivided life. If any man ask, "Where is this life 
to be maintained ?" the answer promptly comes, " Every- 



SERMON III. 53 

where!" It is an enemy who has infused the delusive 
notion that it is associated only with special religious 
exercises, so called. Public worship and communions, 
or even family and closet devotions. Practically walk 
with God during fifty-two days in the year, and all the 
other days without Him ? If I can afford to do without 
God at any time, by a fearful experience I soon learn 
that He can do without me at all times. If a man's 
communion with God be confined to public seasons of 
devotion, we venture nothing in expressing the fear that 
it is but the semblance of communion even in them. A 
continuous progression, therefore, is this walk with God, 
and does not, cannot, cease when a man rises from his 
knees, or leaves the table of the Lord, or descends the 
steps of the house of the Lord. The principle con- 
tained in the text is as far-reaching and as universal as 
it is continuous. As before said, the patriarch Enoch 
was a representative, not of any official class, not of any 
sacerdotal order, but a representative of all who strive to 
live a righteous life, who would walk godly in Christ 
Jesus. A fallacy fatal to many is that it is easier for a 
minister to walk with the Master than for other men. 
Not a breath of such distinction ever comes from Our 
Father's word, — a distinctive fragment it is of that priest- 
craft that for so long darkened the mind and crushed 
the spiritual life of man. 

Fellozuship is one of the leading ideas in the text. It 
means nothing if it does not mean universal fellowship ; 
and fellowship is one of the sweetest features of the 
walk. It carries the thought of a favor reserved for in- 
timate friends. And so, when it can be written of one 



54 SERMON III. 

that he walks with God, we conclude that he has been 
exalted to a lofty place ; that God and he are intimate 
friends. It is even so, as has been tested by the experi- 
ence of a " multitude that no man can number." A very 
real thing with a believer is the consciousness of God's 
friendship with him, of His nearness to him, of His sacred 
fellowship ; sacred, we say, for no friendship was ever so 
sacred as that of God with His believing child. Abra- 
ham, my friend, " shall I hide from him the thing that I 
shall do ?" Nay. " The secret of the Lord is with 
them that fear him, and he will show them his cov- 
enant." 

And then this constant walk, this nearness, so close 
and so sacred, must produce assimilation. We in some 
degree grow like those with whom we are most intimate, 
those with whom we constantly associate. The divine 
features become transferred by the divine companion- 
ship. The kindness of our Father, the forgiveness, the 
patience, the compassion, the long-suffering, the self-de- 
nial, the benevolence, unwearied and constant, become 
all reflected from the children of our Father, the com- 
panions of our Father and of our Elder Brother. And 
this walk so close, this likeness, in all its features 
daily growing more defined, this friendship so sacred, 
forbids all questioning concerning the paths over which 
we may be led or the trials we may be called upon to 
endure. Nowhere is a promise given of exemption from 
fiery trials or affliction's deep waters ; nowhere is it 
promised that their paths shall be smooth, their skies 
cloudless, or their seas unruffled. His presence, His 
arm, to Him binding them the closest when the danger 



SERMON III. 55 

seems the greatest, is the promise, always new and always 
being fulfilled. Joseph set out to walk in the bright, 
happy days of his young life. He put his hand in the 
hand of his father's God. The way led him to the prison 
of Potiphar. What mattered it? "He leadeth me," 
was still his song, and on and on he went ; and still he 
sang until, on ancient Egypt's throne, the sweetest notes 
there, ever heard, were Joseph's song, " He leadeth me." 
It was the walk with God that led the three young 
faithful Hebrews into Babylon's seven times heated fur- 
nace. True ; but what voice is that from out the flame ? 
Say ye, " that surely it shall be well with them that fear 
the Lord." And was it well ? Let Babylon's king him- 
self declare it : " Did not we cast three men bound into 
the midst of the fire?" "True, O king." " Lo, I see 
four men loose, and walking in the midst of the fire, and 
they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the 
Son of God." He leads them, in His wisdom and His 
love, to the furnace of affliction ; but He walks with them 
there, while, obedient to His mandate, the flame does not 
kindle upon them, nor any heat. It was His enemy and 
His people's who said, " his form is like unto the Son of 
God." He was right. It was He who on behalf of His 
own beloved ones troubled Babylon then, and on their 
behalf troubles her still. He the defender, the protector, 
the shield of His people, is their comfort, too. On 
that day when, because of the empty sepulchre, Jerusa- 
lem was troubled, He came to His own, that their hearts 
might not be troubled. Their hearts were full of sorrow ; 
the cross had crushed their hopes. He joined them as 
they walked and were sad; and then He did as ever 



56 SERMON III. 

since He has done, — He made their hearts burn within 
them as " He opened to them the Scriptures." And 
when He was about to leave them, the entreaty, deep and 
tender, came ; the entreaty which from many a follower 
who has long walked with him, this day comes, " Abide 
with us; for it is toward evening, and the day of life is 
far spent." He leaves them, though but a little. And 
scarce had He gone till they received His message, 
" Meet me in Galilee." There they met Him ; what an 
interview ! It is the last till they shall go to be with 
Him. A cloud receives Him out of their sight, but the 
parting promise abides with them, and, better than all of 
earth, it still abides. " Lo, I am with you alway, even 
unto the end of the world." This light, the light of that 
ascension day, solves the mystery of Enoch's end of earth. 
He was sought, but not found. " He was not, for God 
took him." From end to end of His blessed Word, as 
from end to end of the world's history, it is the same 
grand truth, unchanging and eternal. It is as if Jesus 
says to His loved ones, " From the instant you turn with 
heart and soul to me, I am with you ; I am with you 
every day. And at death ? At death you are with me." 
At times, like wayward sheep of His pasture, they wan- 
der from Him. Now He follows His own, whithersoever 
they go, though they do not always follow Him ; but 
there they will " follow the Lamb whithersoever he 
goeth." Now it is, " I am with you alway ;" there it is, 
" Ever with me." " And so shall we be ever with the 
Lord." " He was not; God took him." It was at once 
and forever. It is immediate. It is, " Absent from the 
body and present with the Lord." So near is Jesus that 



SERMON III. 57 

when to His beloved the last change comes it will be like 
the infant waking from its dream, and, lo ! there sits the 
mother, the loving watcher. Only a moment, and it is 
"Jesus as He is." No flight through immensity, no pil- 
grimage through the spheres. " He was not ; God took 
him." The child wakes in the everlasting arms. What 
the cry shall be we know not. Perhaps, " Where am I ? 
whither have I come ?" We know not, but this we know : 
" We shall see him as he is," and shall hear Him say, 
" Forever with the Lord." 

Forever with the Lord. 

Amen ! so let it be. 
Life from the dead is in one word, — 

'Tis immortality. 

So, like Enoch, let us walk with God through the 
months and days of this opening year. Who shall see 
the closing, God only knows. What of trial it has in 
store for us we know not ; but this we know, that " it 
shall be well with them that fear the Lord." Among 
men, they walk with Him here, and in white, among the 
followers of the Lamb, they shall walk with Him here- 
after. 



IV. 

" And that ye study to be quiet, and to do {or to mind) 
your own business!' — I. Thessalonians iv. II.* 

If a sermon is to do us any good it is quite important 
that we do our best to remember the text. Some texts 
are long, and so not very easily remembered. I have 
tried to get one that my young friends can easily carry in 
mind. " Study to be quiet, and to do (or to mind) your 
own business." It is a good thing also to try to remember 
the sermon. So in order to help you in this way I will 
divide the text into two parts. It is such an easy text, that 
I suppose if I were to ask some of you how you think I 
ought to divide it, or to preach on it, you would say at 
once preach first about minding your own business, and 
next tell us what is meant by keeping quiet, and how 
these things go together. That is what I intend to do. 
The first thing that strikes us at the very beginning is 
that every one has some kind of business to mind or to 
do. Our Heavenly Father never created any one with- 
out having some kind of work for that one to do. The 
Lord does not love idlers, and He has ordered it so 
that to be happy we have all to be busy, and He has also 
ordered that idleness will bring unhappiness. If you 
look at yourselves, at your hands and arms, you will see 



* A sermon for children. 
58 



SERMON IV. 59 

how nimble the fingers are, how they are fitted to work ; 
at your feet and limbs, how they are fitted to walk and 
run ; at your brain, how it is to think and plan for all 
you do ; and how God has so set your eyes that you can 
keep a sharp lookout on all you have to do ; and then 
if you look away from yourselves to the very animals, 
you can easily see how the Creator intended each one 
of them to do something, and something that no other 
kind of animal could do. Did you ever read that fable 
about the idle boy who was too lazy to learn his lessons, 
and so played truant? Being a truant, and having no 
one with him, was not much fun. So he asked a squirrel 
he saw in a tree to play with him. " Ah, no," said bunny. 
" I have to gather nuts for my young ones and store them 
away for winter." And then he tried some birds, but 
they were so busy building their nests they paid no at- 
tention at all to him. Next he turned to the cow, but she 
tried to kick him. Then came a fine, large dog taking his 
basket home in his mouth. He would not stop a minute. 
So, as the story goes, he said there was no use in playing 
truant when everybody, and even every beast, was too 
busy to join him ; and so he went back to school, and 
soon found it a great deal better, when every one else was 
minding his business, that he too should be minding his. 
Sometimes when I see boys and young men, well, 
strong, and hearty, lounging around, apparently with 
nothing to do, and no object in life, I cannot repress 
sadness, because it is a fixed law of God, the truth of 
which all will admit, that honest industry is sure, in 
the end, to raise one, and that indolence, in the long 
run, will as certainly destroy. It produces a feeling of 



60 SERMON IV. 

sadness, because they are losing what is more valuable 
than gold, time and opportunity, and acquiring that 
which nothing but a divine power will ever enable them 
to break, a habit of idleness. But I would have you 
remember that there is such a thing as being very busy 
and yet having your business all of the wrong kind. And 
you may be " prospered," as people say, and yet have no 
true success. In your Sabbath-School Lesson to-day you 
were studying the life and work of Jeroboam. He was a 
great man, as some call greatness ; a very busy man, but 
a very bad one. See, through the Bible wherever his 
name is mentioned after your lesson, he is always called 
" Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." 
All down to the last book in the Bible he is thus spoken 
of. And yet it was his great industry which first 
brought him into notice. It is written, " Solomon seeing 
the young man that he was industrious, gave him charge 
over all the house of Joseph." He, in his time, was 
no doubt called a very prosperous man. But because 
his heart was not right with God none of his busy life 
was lived for God, and so God was against him. He 
was not what the Bible calls a successful man. Do you 
think a man who could make the size of this big Bible, 
of gold, every day by selling brandy and whiskey and 
other deadly drinks, to the ruin of other men, their wives 
and their children, would have a successful business ? In 
point of honor and respect such an one is not to be com- 
pared with a poor, little street-sweep I read about the 
other day, who carefully kept his pennies to aid a poor 
mother, and who was so determined to do his humble 
work well that he boasted no other sweep in London 



SERMON IV. 6 1 

could make a more ornamental circle around a lamp- 
post than he ! Sweeping the street-crossings was his own 
business for the time. For the time, remember, not for all 
his life, because the youth who is determined to mind 
his own business, and to do it in the very best way he 
can, is sure to go up to something higher. Promotion 
for faithful service is one of God's laws. 

The life of the late William E. Dodge, one of the 
merchant princes of New York, lately published, ought, 
I think, to be in the hands of every boy and young 
man. A great part of it he wrote himself. He tells 
what his hard work was when a boy, and how he did 
it. The lightest part was sweeping the store, and there 
was no ten hours' time for a day then. But his em- 
ployer, quick to see merit, raised him to higher work, 
and before people had ceased to call him a young man 
he had been made a partner in the house where he 
had commenced the day at five o'clock in the morning. 
The fame of his great business houses in both New 
York and London, long before he died, became world- 
wide. And hundreds, I think I might say thousands, of 
worthy, struggling young men whom he helped, men- 
tion his name at this day with reverence and gratitude. 
And he is but one among hundreds of similar cases 
whom if I had time I might quote. 

And now I know you would like to hear the secret of 
such success. It was this. He seemed to have taken 
the charge which God gave to the comparatively young 
man Joshua when he entered upon his career : " This 
book of the law — i.e., the Bible — shall not depart out of 
thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and 



62 SERMON IV. 

night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all 
that is written therein : for then thou shalt make thy way 
prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success." 
That is the way William E. Dodge and hundreds like 
him have made their way prosperous and have had good 
success. This still is the way, and for the grandest, the 
most enduring success, the only way. I know you can 
point out men who have become rapidly rich by putting 
conscience for a time underneath their ill-gotten gold. 
With the weight of the gold they would weigh it down, 
but I can point you to just as many who, by a most 
wonderful lesson, found that their gold was not weighty 
enough to hold conscience down, but in its struggles if 
their fortunes were not shattered, their happiness was so 
wrecked that they suffered pangs worse than they ever 
felt in the days of their poverty. While we mind our 
own business, and mind it in the best way, we must re- 
member that God, who has marked out our work and 
under whose eye we work, abhors all selfishness. When, 
after he had raised himself under God from the hard 
struggles of the poverty of his boyhood, Mr. Peabody 
came to distribute his great fortune among the needy of 
his own land, he came home bearing the highest honor 
the sovereign of England could bestow on an American, 
because of what he had done for the poor of London. 
In doing our own business by doing good to others we 
win both for earth and heaven the highest crown that by 
mortals can be worn, because it is done in the spirit of 
the Blessed Jesus, of whom it is written : " Though he was 
rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that ye through 
his poverty might be rich." But do you notice that 



SERMON IV. 63 

when this same Jesus directed His servant Paul to write 
our text He directed him to put in one very important 
word which we must not here omit. It is a little word 
of only three letters, — " own." Mind your " own" busi- 
ness. That seems to tell us at once (for in the Bible 
there is never one word put without a reason) that we 
cannot mind our own business and other people's too. 
Those who try to do so fail in both. Did any of you, 
boys or girls, succeed in getting your own lessons while 
you were breaking the rules by pretending to help 
another pupil to get his lessons ? You know when 
recitations came you were both unprepared. It is so 
all through life. You will find that people who inter- 
fere with what really does not concern them only injure 
themselves, while they do others no good. When Paul 
was giving advice to his young friend Timothy, he 
warned him against such persons ; he calls them " busy- 
bodies, going about from house to house and speaking 
about things they ought not to speak of." I would like, 
if it would not tax the attention of my young friends 
too long, to dwell on this very important point of keep- 
ing your attention fixed on your own business. If you 
would read the lives not only of the great characters in 
the Bible, but of those who are now figuring in con- 
spicuous places in the world, you would find they are 
men and women who are bent on one great end, or in the 
words of the text, on " their own business!' They would 
never have become what they were or are if they had not 
had this one aim which is set forth in Solomon's words : 
" Seest thou a man diligent in his business ? he shall stand 
before kings ; he shall not stand before mean men." 



64 SERMON IV. 

I would warn you, therefore, in these the early days 
of your life, while your habits are being formed, against 
meddling in anything that does not really concern you, 
or that will not honorably advance your interests in 
some way. You do not need to be beyond the days 
of your youth to see that people who do not study 
to be quiet, or to mind their own business, are very 
far from being useful people ; and often their bad habit 
brings them much misery. Sensible people are very 
much on their guard as to what they say in their 
presence, and even regard them as dangerous. Such 
persons may have many good qualities, but they limit 
their power for good, as well as limit their own hap- 
piness. As I said, you do not need experience to see 
the truth of the text. Those who obey it, and those 
who disobey it, alike prove the wisdom of the words: 
" Study to be quiet, and to mind your own business." 
And now you want me tell you what the text means 
by studying to be quiet. Not the smallest child here 
would think that the Apostle meant that sort of quiet- 
ness which your parents or teachers call for when 
they want to check disorderly noises at home or in 
school. The text says " study," or, as it is in the lan- 
guage in which Paul wrote, " Be ambitious to be 
quiet." Whenever anybody wants anything about 
which he has to study, or for which he is ambi- 
tious, he has to apply himself; he has to put his mind to 
it ; and often we all find that that is not an easy thing to 
do. Sometimes we feel ourselves aroused by some at- 
tempted wrong done to ourselves, or some one very dear 
to us, or to the community in which we live, and it may 



SERMON IV. 65 

very justly arouse our indignation. Still, the safe plan 
always is, to exercise self-control. One of the wisest of 
all the sayings of Solomon is, " Better is he that ruleth 
his own spirit than he that taketh a city." It will not 
be hard to meet the foes outside if we first win the battle 
in our own hearts. We may find that God has made it 
our business to speak or to act decidedly, openly, and 
bravely, but the wisest way is to be assured by con- 
science, enlightened by the Bible ; that, like that great 
Christian soldier, Chinese Gordon, we may be sure the 
great Commander has given us our marching orders. 
Thus, studying to be quiet we will assuredly find is in- 
separably connected with successfully and happily doing 
our own business. Because our very souls become 
strengthened with an inward peace, the peace which 
God gives, " the peace which passeth all understand- 
ing." The person who thus minds, and does his own 
business, is one whom even the world calls a strong 
character, and all men have respect for him ; while of such 
characters God says, " their peace shall be like a river ;" its 
waters deep, its current so strong that nothing can resist 
it, and carrying beauty and fertility all along its banks. 

Now, my young friends, my heart's desire for you is 
that you may be each a strong character, useful, hon- 
ored, and happy in the service of the Lord. So I leave 
you with the text in the sense in which I have tried to 
explain it, " Study to be quiet," in the service of your 
God, and soon you will find that God will make it His 
business to help to bless and to prosper you while you 
do " your own business." 



" For we arc laborers together with God." — I. Corin- 
thians iii. 9. 

Revised Version. — "For we are God's fellow 
workers' 1 

These words, taken in their connection with the pas- 
sage in which we find them, give us the true idea of 
Christian work. It is a real work, for such God calls it ; 
lofty and ennobling, for it is co-operation with Him in 
His glorious, gracious work in us, as well as with and 
for us. 

In our text the Revised Version gives us a better con- 
ception of the divine meaning than our Authorized Ver- 
sion. It reads, " We are God's fellow workers," not 
laborers. Work and labor in the Bible are not the same 
thing. Labor carries with it the idea of toil, fatigue, 
and often anxious care, and as such formed some of 
the saddest fruits of the fall. Before his fall, work was 
appointed to man. In the innocence of Eden he was 
directed to dress the garden and to keep it. He had a 
law to obey, but that obedience was one of the delights 
of his existence, like the work of the everlasting Father 
himself. No pain was in it, nor fatigue, nor toil, nor 
sweat, nor rebuke, nor disappointment, nor any of that 
66 



SERMON V. 67 

fear of failure with which his work has been accom- 
panied ever since. It was like the work of his Father, 
and nowhere in all the Bible do we hear of God laboring 
or having labored. It is said that after the creation of 
the heavens and the earth that " God rested," not from 
His labor, but " from all his works which he had created 
and made." The idea of fatigue or of rest for recupera- 
tion does not enter here ; but, as in other parts of the 
Word, and many of them by figurative language, God 
meets our finite apprehension to let us know that that 
special work was brought to an end. In the course of 
nature God works now as He did at the creation. 
Having appointed fixed laws, the " great globe of earth 
revolves showing alternate faces to the sun, — smoothly, 
silently, without effort, without any apparent resistance 
in the path traced by the finger of the Invisible." Such, 
too, was the wonderful way of the working of our Lord. 
It needed but a touch or a word, and that so gently 
spoken that but few heard, to heal what men had thought 
beyond all power to heal. And His only explanation 
was, " My father worketh hitherto, and I work." These 
works were not simply evidences of His power, but also, 
and perhaps primarily, of His delights in doing good to 
the children of men. It is to confer on us the loftiest of 
pleasures that He tells us in the text we are fellow- 
laborers or co-workers together with Him, — " fellow- 
laborers" on our part, we may say, for we take many a 
struggle, many a doubt, and many a fear of discomfiture 
with us into our best works. In Old Testament lan- 
guage we are well described : " Man goeth to his work 
and his labor until the evening." The labor, with all 



68 SERMON V. 

that the word signifies, interweaves itself with the best 
and purest that we do. But this has a blessed limit. 
The Word, says only until the evening; and then, when 
that evening cometh, it is written, " Blessed are the dead 
which die in the Lord, that they may rest from their 
labors ; and their works do follow them." No more 
delightful or more profitable theme could we now have 
for our meditation than is afforded by these few words, 
" laborers together with God." It directs us to think, 
first, of God's work in us ; next, of His work by us ; and 
last, of the great encouragement under which we work. 
The text implies that God has a great work to do by 
us ; a work in which He has a deep personal interest, His 
own glory being so inseparably linked with the advance- 
ment of our best interests. One of the evidences of His 
deep interest in us is that He never conceals His design 
from us. The minutia of His plans He may withhold, 
but neither the end nor the principle of His working. 
Never are we commanded to learn and obey His com- 
mands without knowing the reason of His having given 
them. " I have not called you servants, but friends : for 
the servant knozveth not what his lord doetli!' The ser- 
vant hears the command, and it is his to obey, whether 
he comprehend the reason or not. The friend, because 
of his intimacy with the Master, not only hears the word, 
telling him what he must do, but is shown the right and 
the beauty of the reason why he must do it. " Shall I 
hide from Abraham that thing which I shall do ?" said 
the Lord ; and with Moses, " As a man speaketh with 
his friend, he spake face to face." He would have us 
know His work on earth, — how excellent it is, — and so 



SERMON V. 69 

gives us to know all concerning it that we can receive, 
in order that we may know the usefulness as well as the 
exalted joys, not only of His servants, not of laborers only, 
but /^//czf-laborers, with Him ; not workers only, but 
workers together with Him. At the very outset we are 
to consider the work God has to do in our own souls. 
Upon the view we take of this point depends whether the 
universe shall be to us a heaven or a hell. Upon all 
sides and by many voices God is calling us to co-operate 
with Him, — nature, conscience, revelation, and prudence, 
all alike proclaim it. We cannot escape from the con- 
viction that there is One higher than ourselves with 
whom we have to do ; One who is ever seeking to de- 
liver us from our own evil selves, and whose voice, never 
silent, is judging our daily lives. Who of us has not 
been many a time conscious of fighting, not against self, 
but a holy, wise, mysterious power, who opposed, and 
consequently was resisted by self? Sin, therefore, has 
not been with any one here, ignorance of the good, but 
opposition to the good. In refusing to hear God's voice 
speaking in so many ways, one does not simply refuse 
to obey God, but falls into the line of obedience to 
God's terrible adversary. Unwilling to serve God, a 
man irresistibly falls into the service of Satan. If he re- 
fuse to be a co-worker with God, no choice is left but 
to be a fellow-laborer with the spirit which now works 
in the children of disobedience. To have any true con- 
ception of God's great design for us we must begin by 
assuming that God has the love for us His gospel de- 
clares, and that our ill-doing or well-doing, for ourselves 
and for others, are matters of deepest concern to Him. 



70 SERMON V. 

To put this matter in the plainest form or strongest 
light : Suppose that when Jesus Christ was on earth that 
you had met Him personally; that, as He preached His 
gospel from city to city, you had seen Him, as His eye 
looked on you, and had heard Him in those times which 
stirred so many hearts say to the weary, the toil-worn, 
and the heavy-laden, " Come unto me and I will give you 
rest," or, " Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast 
out," and had beheld the joy it gave Him to see bless- 
ing conferred on man, and the sorrow it gave Him to 
see the offers of His love rejected, conscious of the eter- 
nal sorrows that must ensue, you would have been star- 
tled at the thought of any one replying to Him, " I do 
not believe that thou carest aught for me," or, " I do 
not believe that there is any faith or any love that thou 
carest to see wrought in my soul." To have spoken in 
such a strain you would have pronounced fearful blas- 
phemy. The conviction would have been overwhelming 
that, whether men yielded to His wishes or not, those 
wishes were unquestionable ; that personally He wished 
you, through faith in His name, to be holy and happy ; 
and accordingly, if you should fall in with His plan and 
so accept His offer of power, you were but taking the 
place of a worker together with Him ; if you determine 
against both, you were a laborer against Him. With 
this personal service we have to do now just as really 
and as truly as did any of the disciples that followed 
Him on earth. And so, to be fellow-laborers with Him 
in His holy and living work, that work must be first 
begun in our own souls, and begun, is to feel that He, 
while working for us, " is working in us both to will and 



SERMON V. 71 

to do of his good pleasure ;" we working out our own 
salvation, and our Lord and Master working by us, while 
as laborers together with Him, we work for the salva- 
tion of others. This is one of the fruits of that true holi- 
ness which comes from union with Christ. United to 
Him we at once become one in spirit, in aim, and, I 
might say, in character. The fact, to every close ob- 
server, is quite apparent that there is no well-rounded 
greatness without real goodness, and where that is, to a 
greater or less degree, you always find genuine useful- 
ness. As all is but the evidence of the work of Christ 
in us, it very soon becomes evinced by His work by 
us. This was illustrated by Paul when he said, " Now 
then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did 
beseech you by us : we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye 
reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for 
us, who knew no sin ; that we might be made the right- 
eousness of God in him. We then, as workers together 
with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace 
of God in vain." 

Never was there a soul more thoroughly fired with an 
earnest desire to accomplish a work than Paul's as he 
uttered these words. He is pleading with God's enemies 
to be reconciled. But on what ground does he present 
his plea? As vain and empty as the winds had been all 
his arguments and efforts toward the salvation of their 
souls had either he or his hearers have felt that he stood 
alone. His power had all gone had he stood in doubt 
or ignorance of God's wishes toward them. If his earn- 
estness was intense, and his hope of success strong, it 
was because he knew that, however great his love to his 



72 SERMON V. 

fellow-men, it was but a dim reflection of the love of 
Him whose messenger he was, and with whom he was a 
laborer together, a fellow-worker. In this same spirit 
must we seek to do the work God would do by us. The 
fact must ever be kept before us that the brother, the 
fellow-being, to whom we would do good, is as dear to 
God as was ever any kinsman dear to us. This kept 
in remembrance, not only gives a lofty incentive, but 
imparts a mighty moral power to our work. It tends to 
keep us ever on the watch against doing injury in the 
countless forms which even the best of God's servants 
may be tempted to operate against their fellow-man. It 
will keep us in mind that never, by word or example, by 
silence or by speech, may we do aught that, in his heart, 
would strengthen the spirit of evil. It may be that 
thoughtlessly, almost unconsciously, in our influence, 
we leave the field of co-operation with God to enter the 
domain of work with the enemy. We do this when we 
do or say anything to flatter the pride or feed the vanity 
of another, or when the spirit of the pit suggests the re- 
cital of that which, under the garb of truth, can only tend 
to the injury of another, whether it be his social standing, 
character, or fortune. In our dealing with others let us 
ask ourselves, " Will my action help or hinder His work 
here ? Have I, by word or example, by indifference or 
opposition, kept back neighbor, brother, friend, or child 
from Christ?" A dread alternative it is to be " A fellow- 
worker with God" or a laborer together with Satan. By 
this test one soon finds that work lies, not on the surface, 
but down deep in the spirit of the man. To do God's 
work in God's way for our fellow-men requires the hard- 



SERMON V. 73 

est discipline under which the human spirit ever passes. 
How much crushing of self when the natural pride of 
one's heart prompts it to resent the ingratitude and the 
coldness which often follow works which had been 
prompted by the most earnest longing for the good of 
others, while the only memory of it all is the bitter 
recollection that, while we strove hard, we strove appa- 
rently in vain ! But not in vain ; for when a brother's 
soul is dear to us, when first and above all we seek his 
good, when we are willing even to have our motives 
suspected, and, if need be, to be, like our Master's, re- 
jected, then indeed have we His spirit, — then indeed are 
we workers together with Him ; and in such co-operation 
never can there be any failure. Nothing in His spirit is 
ever done in vain. Little does the world understand the 
deep workings of this kind of love, which, however im- 
perfect it may be, yet burns in the breasts of Christians 
only, because they are partakers of that love which, in 
its highest perfection, is possessed only by " him who 
loved us and gave himself for us." 

When deeply interested in this relative or that friend 
we often despond because of our apparent meagre suc- 
cess, and then we are tempted to feel a sense of loneli- 
ness in our work, or as if God did not love or care for 
the objects of our solicitude as much as we do. Thus 
our infirmity operates against our comfort as well as 
success. For let our love and sympathies flow out 
with all their energy, still they will be infinitely below 
the love of their brother and our brother, their God and 
our God. In the truest and tenderest of working we are 
workers together with God, — the truest and tenderest of 
6 



74 SERMON V. 

all. Otherwise our works would not be right, because out 
of harmony with His working, and, consequently, could 
not be owned and blessed. This it is that makes the 
very life and power of church work in all its departments, 
whether it be reformer, or parent, or pastor, or Sunday- 
school teacher. The inspiring thought of the heavenly 
alliance into which, by grace, we have been exalted is 
more than earth can estimate, for it infinitely transcends 
all that earth could ever give. This it is which consti- 
tutes the very life and power of all true missionary work. 

We can enter the very foulest, most polluted den ; we 
can ply the most degraded of all sin's victims with the 
arguments, the entreaties, and most tender offers of 
mercy, because it is done in Christ's stead, in co-work 
with Him who, by the self-righteous, was rejected and 
despised because He was the friend of publicans, and be- 
cause He received sinners and ate with them. 

It is this which has turned, and still is turning, the 
deserts of heathendom into the fruitful fields of the Mas- 
ter's tillage. Working not alone, but together, with God, 
there is not a spot among the morally darkest of earth 
that we cannot visit, cheered, borne up against every 
discouragement, every difficulty, and amid all dangers. 
Of whatever else we may be in doubt of this we may 
rest assured, that in every effort to bring blessing to our 
fellow-beings, whether at home or abroad, near or far off, 
we are expressing not our kindly or benevolent feeling 
only, but the deep, warm sympathy of Jesus in His love 
to them, in His longing for them, and in His divine desire 
to see of the travail of His soul in their salvation. And 
when, with Jesus, we enter into this blessed work, no 



SERMON V. 75 

more possibility of failure is there than is there a possi- 
bility of proving that anything He has said or done has 
ever failed. The word of man only may and surely will 
return to him void, but as sure as that Jesus the Son of 
God and our Saviour now lives for us and for the world, 
for whom He gave Himself, so surely His word will ac- 
complish its aim, and will His gospel and those who 
proclaim it be blessed, and the desire of His heart and 
their hearts be granted when His kingdom shall come 
and His will be done in earth even as it is done in heaven. 
Dr. William Taylor, of New York, beautifully illustrates 
the secret of Paul's pre-eminence in the work of saving 
souls by the incident of a Spanish sailor who was taken 
into a Liverpool hospital to die. After he had breathed 
his last there was found upon his breast tattooed, after 
the manner of his class, a representation of Christ upon 
the cross. " You call that superstition," said he, " and 
perhaps you are right ; yet there was beauty in it too, 
for if we could only have in our hearts what that poor 
seaman had so painfully punctured over his we should 
be great indeed." This was the open secret of Paul's 
great success, and of all in every station who have ever 
been laborers together with Christ, — " Always bearing 
about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the 
life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." 
Then shall our labor be not in vain in the Lord if we, to 
the end, will have borne with patience, and for His sake 
labored and not fainted. Then shall we hear His voice 
say, " To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with 
me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set 
down with my Father in his throne." 



VI. 

" Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee ? Judah, 
what shall I do unto thee ? for your goodness is as a 
morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away." — 
Hosea vi. 4. 

A strange expression this with which our text begins. 
Can it be that any perplexity can enter the divine mind, 
or that any doubt as to the disposition He should make 
of any of His creatures ever trouble Him ? Nay ; but 
we are to listen with profoundest reverence while He 
comes down to our apprehension and speaks to us after 
the manner of men. Under the names of Ephraim and 
Judah are all His professing people included. But they 
are not all Israel that are of Israel. With many He 
holds, as by the lips of His prophet He declares, a rea- 
sonable and a fearful controversy. His laws they have 
flagrantly violated, His warnings they have utterly dis- 
regarded, and now, from the execution of the terrible 
penalty, with a parent's love His heart would recoil. He 
has tried all other methods ; nothing but judgment is 
left, and the deep pathos of a father's tenderest love 
breathes through the words, " O Ephraim, what shall I 
do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?" 

What here is the first point in His complaint ? The 
very superficial character of their religion. It was like 
76 



SERMON VI. 77 

the morning cloud, and, like the early dew, it vanished 
away. With the figure under which the divine truth is 
conveyed the people of that Oriental land were but too 
familiar, and we, in the season through which we are 
passing, can understand something of its literal meaning. 
But those tropical lands, by a sad tuition, understood it 
as we never could. Their periods of drouth are frequent 
and often long-continued. During those seasons, when 
day after day the streams are drying, and the parched 
earth in seams opening as if crying for rain, while day 
after day the sun goes down in amber, the very sight of 
a cloud creates the highest expectation. But when the 
cloud passes with nothing but hope disappointed, no 
wonder is it that the depression is correspondingly great. 
This explains the apostle Peter, who, when speaking of 
empty professions, calls them " wells without water," and 
Jude, also, when writing of form without substance in 
religion, likens it to clouds without rain. Looking back 
over the history of that people, it seemed to be almost a 
constant alternation between remembrance on God's part 
and faithless promises of reformation on their part. Often 
did Judah give indication of amendment, but the result 
was only like the morning cloud. Often did Ephraim 
raise the expectation of a return to God, to His love and 
His law, but its result was only as the dew which goeth 
away, and leaveth the earth dryer and the day more sul- 
try than before. 

You can now easily perceive that the theme suggested 
by this illustration from Bible lands and history of Bible 
times applies pointedly to us and our times. There are 
comparatively few, if any, who are in attendance upon 



78 SERMON VI. 

religious ordinances who at some time have not been the 
subjects of religious impression. Perhaps there is not 
one unconverted person who has had religious associa- 
tions but has, at some time, been profoundly moved con- 
cerning the great question of his soul's salvation. In the 
mysterious working of the Divine Spirit there are many 
causes to produce it, — a conversation in which they may 
have accidentally participated or have overheard, a death 
in their immediate circle, or a narrow escape from death 
themselves, or, which is oftenest the cause, a message 
from the Word of God, held up in such a light as to 
startle and alarm because it seems with such solemn 
emphasis to meet the case and appeal to the conscience 
of the individual himself. Not infrequent is it that those 
impressions are evidently too deep to be concealed, — 
manifest enough to inspire the best of hope, — and yet 
that disappear like the morning cloud or the early dew. 

It is well while we note the fact, which on every hand 
is but too apparent, to try to ascertain the cause. Many 
an expedient does the enemy of souls resort to, and never 
is he with the agencies of the pit so busily engaged as 
when his arts are employed upon a soul under conviction. 
One of the first difficulties in the way of many an 
awakened soul comes from questions concerning the 
soul's deepest interest, questions which divine wisdom 
has seen best to leave unrevealed, such as " the origin of 
evil," " the harmony of divine sovereignty with human 
freedom," "the mysteries of the incarnation of Jesus and 
of the atonement by Him," and many other such ques- 
tions which, because of the difficulties of their solution, 
it has pleased God to reserve to Himself. These the 



SERMON VI. 79 

sinner believes or tries to believe remove from him the 
responsibility of an instant and a decided stand. In 
such a state of mind not long does it take for a man to 
convince himself that he is right in remaining as he was 
before these disturbing influences came upon him, and 
thus his ability to resist the divine Hand, should it touch 
him again, is greater than at first it was. The existence 
of many and most serious difficulties surrounding God's 
plan for the salvation of a lost world by every Christian 
is most freely admitted. No thoughtful man but every 
day of his life feels himself environed by them. The 
question before us is, the fatal mistake made by any 
who permit these difficulties to stand in the way of their 
immortal interests. Let it be remembered that " the 
existence of difficulties," as it has been well said, is in- 
separable from any revelation which is short of infinite. 
All perplexities arise from imperfect knowledge. If we 
could know everything perfectly there would be no diffi- 
culty, but the only intellect which has such knowledge 
is that of God Himself. No created intellect, either 
human or angelic, can fathom the mysteries of Omnipo- 
tence. How vain, therefore, is the attempt of any, 
when disturbed by thoughts of individual responsibility 
to God, to try to intrench themselves behind the diffi- 
culties of the Bible. To such objections it would be 
hard to find a more conclusive reply than that of a plain, 
humble Christian to an infidel's argument that the Scrip- 
tures were incomprehensible. " I could not believe the 
Bible to be the Word of God," he said, " if it contained 
nothing but what I could comprehend." 

Great force lay in the reply, for, did the Bible come 



SO SERMON VI. 

within the grasp of human intellect in all respects, it 
would differ widely from all the other works of God. 
No mysteries does it contain that are not equalled by the 
mysteries of God's works, as seen and read by us every 
day. When reproving the people for wilful ignorance, 
Jeremiah says, " The stork in the heaven knoweth her 
appointed times ; and the turtle and the crane and the 
swallow observe the time of their coming ; but my people 
know not the judgment of the Lord." 

The summer, we all know, brings us visitors from 
southern climes in the birds of passage which always 
travel with the sun. As they hop through the branches 
of Central American groves or sport by the banks of 
tropical rivers, what tells them that the ice and the snow 
have melted in the north, and that the sun, through long 
days, is shining upon our fields and streams, and that 
the time for their return to northern groves has come ? 
And who, by unerring guidance, has taught them the 
course they never mistake ? How often do we find God's 
irrational creatures performing feats to which the most 
accomplished sons of science have never attained ! When, 
during the late Franco-German war, Paris was cut off 
from all communication with the outside world, how was 
it that God's carrier-doves, in spite of all the power and 
skill of the besieging army, made the world to know the 
woes of that beleaguered city ? Look but an instant at 
the voyage of one of those marvels of the air. For many 
hundreds or thousands of miles it cleaves its course ; no 
chart or compass or pilot to guide its flight. Onward it 
goes through the wildest storms, densest fogs, and dark- 
ness of starless nights ; yet, a fact well ascertained but a 



SERMON VI. 8 1 

mystery inexplicable, it returns over seas, lands, rivers, 
and mountains to the very home of its birth. Here is a 
mystery than which the Bible contains nothing more in- 
explicable. Nor need we go so far to reveal the unrea- 
sonableness of the person who, concerning God's deep 
yet loving plan of salvation, will not believe anything be- 
cause he cannot comprehend everything. Can any one 
tell us, by sensible definition, what electricity is, — anni- 
hilating space, carrying our messages, illuminating our 
cities, the mighty yet the silent motive power of our 
streets, and, by a wondrous mechanism, commanding 
those atmospheric changes in our homes, halls, and places 
of business so grateful to the languid frame these op- 
pressive midsummer days ? Behold, not it, for no eye 
hath seen it, but its working; and what a mystery is 
there ! But no man hesitates to avail himself of its ad- 
vantages because of its mysteries. I cannot tell what 
light is, yet, like the air, in it I live and move, and can 
conceive of no desolation greater than to be without it. 
This is another of the multitudinous mysteries of our 
daily life. How absurd, then, to make the difficulties of 
the Bible an objection to its humble study ! It is not in 
these things only, but in the painting of every lily, in the 
shaping of every leaf, in the shooting of every blade of 
grass, that 

" God moves in a mysterious way 
His wonders to perform." 

Need we start at finding mysteries in the great work 
of our redemption ? Or at an apostle as he lifts his hands in 
wonder to exclaim, " Great is the mystery of godliness !" 



82 SERMON VI. 

God was manifest in the flesh. That I cannot compre- 
hend fully the wonders of the divine wisdom and love 
as seen in the atonement must never be a reason to pre- 
vent my taking to myself the infinitely precious blessings 
secured me by the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. If 
we would but bring our common sense to bear upon our 
religious matters as we do in the common things of our 
every-day life speculative difficulties would have but 
feeble hold upon us, if they would have any hold at all, 
and our goodness would not be like that of Ephraim or 
Judah, — like " the morning cloud, or the early dew which 
goeth away." 

A very precious principle to hold by in these days, and 
one full of thought, was that addressed by our Saviour 
to the Jews : " If ye continue in my word, then are ye 
my disciples indeed ; and ye shall know the truth, and 
the truth shall make you free." " What is truth ?" was 
a question addressed to Christ, not by Pilate only, but 
by the Jews in some form during almost every day of 
His earthly ministry. The Jew taught, " Study it out 
and you shall learn it." Christ said to act it, " Continue 
ye and ye shall knoiv." Here lies the true philosophy 
of a religious life. It matters little what a man be in 
doubt about when he knows that it is always wrong to 
do wrong. There are very many duties that are perfectly 
plain that no man doubts his ability to perform, — duties 
to his God and to his fellow-men. A conscience within 
him, in a voice more or less distinct, is constantly re- 
minding him of his obligation to a law written not in the 
divine Word only, but also on the tablets of his own 
heart. Let every man honestly act out that law, and 



SERMON VI. 83 

then to the light he has there will soon be added more 
light. If a man really wants to get rid of troublesome, 
speculative doubts let him attend faithfully to practical 
duties. For example : to reverence God's sanctuary will 
inevitably be followed by the honoring of God's Sabbath. 
The more conscientiously he tries to perform his duties 
to both God and man the more quickly will he find the 
entire aspect of the matter changing, and duty becomes 
privilege. There is a wealth of counsel as well as the 
richest promise in the words of our Saviour, " If any man 
will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it 
be of God." This, if followed, will soon cause religious 
impression to harden into firm principle. But neglect it, 
and, however solemn and deep the impression, it soon 
will be " as the morning cloud and as the early dew." 

Still another cause very frequently operates to remove 
spiritual impressions. Some are influenced greatly by 
the fear of a certain kind of opposition, the dread of 
taunts from former companions, and of being made the 
butt of disagreeable jokes, or it may be the fear of being 
compelled to relinquish something very desirable as the 
cost of a religious profession. These are difficulties 
which, though from a true Christian stand-point seem 
quite trivial, yet are not to be underestimated. Ridi- 
cule to some presents a formidable front, and especially 
when the spirit a man is trying to cherish prevents that 
keen retort which otherwise could be used as a most 
potent weapon. Yet a firm stand is often all that is 
needed, not only to silence opposition, but even to turn 
ridicule into respect. All men love sincerity evinced by 
a true courage, and, while many love the evanescent 



84 SERMON VI. 

fruits of hypocrisy, none love the hypocrite. Indecision 
never yet, from saint or sinner, has won any plaudits, as 
witness Orpah's ; but the steadfast heroism of her sister- 
in-law has embalmed the names of Ruth and Naomi for 
all the ages. " Be ye steadfast, unmovable," then shall ye 
know what it is to " abound in the work of the Lord," — 
a work which is a protest always and everywhere against 
the goodness which is " as the morning cloud and the 
early dew." But in the removal of religious impressions 
there is yet another cause which here I dare not pass. 
It is that which lies at the door of professed Christians. 
We would not make the terrible charge that it is by any so 
designed. But withal none the less fatal is the influence. 
The seriousness produced by some tenderly searching mes- 
sage is often effaced by a thoughtless, flippant remark be- 
fore reaching the sidewalk, or, perhaps, before leaving the 
church, while the important subject, to which all thoughts 
have been turned, has been totally ignored. No wonder 
that anxious ones, needing the kindly hand of help, have 
shrunk back upon themselves with the question, " Can 
it be that life here and hereafter is what we have heard 
it is, when to these professors of religion it is a matter 
of so much levity ? If they care so little, am I not unduly 
troubled ?" Then again, when by some painful dispen- 
sation the soul of some one has been softened and has 
yearned for sympathy, the thoughtless indifference of 
those calling themselves followers of the Lamb has de- 
stroyed all reverence for the religion of Jesus, leaving 
them to ask, " Is this Christianity, with no prompting to 
any one to care for my soul ?" Or, looking at the glaring 
inconsistencies of many a noisy Pharisee, they try to get 



SERMON VI. 85 

peace themselves by waving away the whole matter with, 
" If that be Christianity, I am well enough without it." 
And so their goodness passes " as the morning cloud or 
the early dew." To any who would shift the matter of 
their salvation upon the shoulders of another we plainly 
say, Religion is a personal matter, and " every one shall 
give account of himself to God." The inconsistency 
of church members may be just as you say. God will, 
for it, hold them to account ; but to just as righteous an 
account will He hold you. With the judgment we judge 
we shall ourselves be judged. No one arraigned for 
dishonesty before a court is excused because many others 
at large are really as guilty as he. The answer would 
be, " Even so, but for your act you are judged," and, 
" We are dealing, not with others, but with you." " Take 
heed, therefore, to yourselves," and " give diligence to 
make your own calling and election sure." Then do 
what you can to bring others to a better life. In addi- 
tion, every one knows that all Christians are not like 
those you condemn. Be honest in your estimate of 
them. Judge as fairly as you do in other things. The 
tree is known by its fruits, you tell me. True enough ; 
but it is by the fruit under which the branches bend, not 
that half-decayed and worm-eaten specimen lying on the 
ground. So judge the religion of the Redeemer by those 
who are ever trying to walk even as He walked. You 
know there are such. You know that there are many 
who live a life derived from the Invisible ; and have you 
not often said that if all Christians were like them 
the world would be different ? Were there nothing 
else to witness against you, that itself would leave 



86 SERMON VI. 

every unconverted one within the circle of Christian in- 
fluence without excuse. We entreat all, then, to make 
instant decision. Enlist under Christ's banner. Let the 
power of your example be a living protest against the 
formalism of the hypocrite. Consecrate your life in all 
things to the service of Him who loved you and gave 
Himself for you. Let it be a protest against that super- 
ficial profession which grieved the Lord as He beheld 
Ephraim and Judah, which was " like the morning cloud 
and the early dew which goeth away." 



VII. 

"And lie was sad at that saying, and zvent azvay 
grieved ; for he had great possessions." — Mark x. 22. 

A dark ending to what had seemed a most hopeful 
beginning. Among the many pictures of the wonderful 
interviews between our Lord and the different represen- 
tative characters of His time, none is there more sug- 
gestive, more vivid, or more impressively instructive than 
this, of which our text forms a part. 

It presents a young man who comes running to the 
Lord, as He stands surrounded by His disciples. He is 
a young man of wealth ; of high social standing, hold- 
ing responsible official position ; of unimpeachable 
morality ; of moral courage superior to that of his con- 
temporary and fellow-member of the Sanhedrim, who 
sought Jesus by might. He came openly in broad day ; 
he came, too, like many another young man of that day, 
and of this day, too, — with a great respect for religion, 
and with manners so winning, so highly cultivated, that 
he won his way almost unconscious of effort, and so suc- 
cessfully that the Lord plainly indicated the outgoing 
of heart-warm friendship for him. It is written, " When 
the Lord saw him, he loved him." He came also with 
the momentous question, " Good Master, what shall I 
do that I may inherit eternal life ?" 

87 



88 SERMON VII. 

Why, then, has this promising interview so sad a 
sequel ? Were the terms of discipleship too exacting ? 
No terms had been presented differing aught from those 
self-imposed by the band around him, one of whom that 
very hour speaks for himself and for the others, " Mas- 
ter, we have left all, to follow thee." 

Had a new condition of salvation been announced ? 
None at all is even hinted at. He who claims the earth 
as His, and to whom the silver and the gold belong, 
neither asked nor needed a mite of his money. 

Why, then, was it that he went away ? This is the 
first question suggested by the text. 

2d. How did he go? 

3d. What did he go from ? 

4th. What did he go to ? 

These we consider the main points suggested by the 
text, in answer to which we have each and all a deep 
personal interest. 

1st. You notice that after the Lord's announcement, 
he makes no reply, offers no argument, makes no appeal, 
but turns away, silent as well as sorrowful. It was 
because, by one flash of spiritual light, He whom he 
had addressed as Good Master revealed him to himself. 
He saw then a chain, the existence of which until then 
he never even dreamed, which anchored him to his 
possessions, and which that day he decided he would 
not drop. 

"What good thing, Good Master, shall I do to 
inherit eternal life ?" And the Master took him in his 
own way ; met him upon his own terms. You imagine 
that eternal life may be purchased. Yours is not the 



SERMON VII. 89 

dull, dead, hopeless, cheerless creed of the Sadducee, 
which proclaims " no hereafter." It is well. But you 
base all your claims to the favor of the God of Abra- 
ham ; on what you do to and for your fellow-men. The 
claims of God, from whom you have received all you 
have, " in whose hand thy breath is and whose are all 
thy ways, thou hast not known." 

Now, not according to the letter only, but in the 
fullest spirit of these second-table duties, honor your 
God by consecrating all He has given you to relieve the 
suffering of the needy; of those who, like yourself, 
have been created in your " Father's image." 

He could not but have felt the force of every syllable 
spoken by the Master. Conviction of the justice of the 
divine requirement must have beamed from the Saviour's 
countenance, mingled also with the love which prompted 
every word. One thing is sure. There was sincerity in 
the young man's approach to the Redeemer. He sought 
to meet his responsibility in a manly way ; a way which 
seemed the more remarkable because of the frivolity of 
his time and his surroundings. But, after all, his char- 
acter was essentially defective. The principle which, 
above all, the Lord wanted to use as the ruling power of 
his life was wanting. In all he said even human eye 
could see that which from the Searcher of hearts could 
not be hidden : that obligation to God was not in his 
thoughts ; that love to God was not the motive power, 
nor any part of the power, which commanded the 
energies of his superficially beautiful life. Then the test 
was applied, which disclosed the fact ; which uncovered 
all. Then it was that the curtain dropped upon the 
7 



90 SERMON VII. 

scene, with his back turned upon Christ ; sad at heart, 
yet his face turned to the world. 

It was the gravest point in all his life. The turning- 
point in which his decision was made, and made for 
two worlds. What did he do ? His decision made, 
there was but one thing he could do. One alternative 
lay before him. It must be Christ accepted or rejected. 
He chose ; and we know of no more solemn warning 
from the Saviour's day, handed down through the ages, 
than this choice with its reasons. A representative 
character, he has an immense constituency. He held to 
that fatal doctrine that a highly moral life, which is but 
for a moment, is enough to base the hope of eternal life 
upon. 

And like many whom he represents to-day, it was 
more than a theory, more than a doctrine ; it was practi- 
cally and beautifully carried out, according to his view 
of the demands of the divine law. Holding this earnest 
and, so far as it goes, this truthful view of moral obliga- 
tion, the class whom this young man represents inquire 
with all sincerity of those who hold to the first great 
essential of the Christian faith, " In what do you differ 
from us ? Your desire is for correct living. That is ours. 
You hold to a certain Biblical doctrine concerning a 
right life. Without adherence to any doctrine of your 
Christian faith, we too aim at the same. We like direct 
practical results, and reach the same end without your 
doctrines." To such, one answer of the Bible is here 
enough. 

If a right life be the object aimed at, and a right life 
consists in obedience to God, and God as Father, Cre- 



SERMON VII. 91 

ator, Preserver, and Saviour has righteously ordered 
that obedience to Him, alliance with Him, renunciation 
of all else for Him, be the first item of true obedience, 
then does it not logically follow that there cannot be even 
the beginning of a right life until this commandment is 
obeyed ? Does not the deliberate neglect of any one com- 
mand prove that the spirit of true obedience is not there ? 

It is not only a mistake, but a fatal one, to believe 
that I can select from among the requirements of the 
divine law those which may appear to me the more 
practical, and leave the others unattended to. We 
know, for our Christian experience has taught us but 
too well, that all the commandments we cannot perfectly 
keep. We offend sometimes in one, again in another; 
but we rejoice to know that our Father knows where 
the spirit of obedience exists. But when we assume to 
select, when we deliberately pass one injunction by, do 
what we may, in spirit we are thoroughly disobedient. 
Do we admit such a principle of action in our depend- 
ants, our employees ? 

If the motive which prompts me to observe one com- 
mand be the genuine spirit of loyalty to my Master, 
then will that same spirit control obedience to every 
other. How plainly has the Saviour's word laid this 
down ! He that offendeth in one point is guilty of all. 
Let all who by the young man in the text may be here 
represented at this point take warning. This is the 
point of his departure from Christ. In spite of all the 
moral loveliness which clustered around him, and shone 
in a bright effulgence wherever he went, the spirit which 
was, above all, beautiful in God's sight was entirely 



92 SERMON VII. 

wanting. He knew it ; he felt that the Master knew it, 
so he turned away. Had such a principle as that which 
ruled his life had even the weight of a feather with Him 
whom that day he addressed, the grandeur, the glory, 
of the whole plan of redeeming love had been all 
changed ; had been forever darkened, and the hope of a 
lost world now forever perished. 

The spiritual nature of God's law he did not know; 
neither knew he the perfect holiness of the character in 
whose presence he stood as a discerner of the thoughts 
and intents of the heart, else he had not replied, 
" Master, all these things have I kept from my youth." 

The person of that Good Master was the very embodi- 
ment of that law which declares that theft may be in a 
desire, murder in an angry passion, and adultery in a 
look ; so of right his proud declaration had been 
changed into the tone and the language of humble con- 
trition : 

" Alas, alas, Master, all these things have I broken 
from my youth." He went away, because to have taken 
the gospel terms would have required a total revolution 
of his life. A member of the Sanhedrim, he must at 
once become a Christian. The name was as yet 
unknown, but not the shame. He must link his lot 
with those who had already surrendered their all 
because of their Master. Compared with his estates, 
their all — a few fishing-nets and a few fishing-boats, and 
perhaps a few fishers' cottages — was as nothing. Still, 
it was their all. There was but little in his eyes to win 
to a Saviour in whose sight or thoughts a diamond ring 
and a beggar's rags shone with equal beauty. 



SERMON VII. 93 

To have taken Christ would have been in his eyes 
nothing but scorn by friends and family ; to have taken 
Christ would have been expulsion from the Sanhedrim, 
and with it the derision that it involved in the eyes of 
scribe and of Pharisee, and of every one in Jerusalem. 
For all this he was not ready ; and as he turned away 
he thought it too much to ask that he ever would be 
ready. Does any heart here, in sympathy with him, 
respond, " too much," and ask, How can that Jesus who 
looked on him, and loved him as he looked, ask so 
much ? It is in infinite love He asks it — even if nothing 
were said of justice infinite. The lips which uttered the 
gracious words, " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest," would never repel, 
but always attract. The smoking flax He could fan into 
a flame. He longed to see him wear the yoke which 
He alone could make easy. He longed to strengthen 
his back for a burden which His hands alone could 
make light. The earnest desire to obtain eternal life as 
heard in the request of the youthful suppliant was, in 
the ears of the Lord, sweeter than any music. But that 
life eternal, which in a few days more for a lost race He 
was to purchase by the death of the cross, He would teach 
the young ruler and all who would come after, by man 
could never be purchased again ; by no good thing done 
can it ever be inherited. As a gratuity to a number 
that no man can number, it is given, and accepted. As 
a right, by none can it ever be won. 

The Saviour longed to see his pride so completely 
broken that he would breathe the same spirit, and be 
fitted for the same triumphs with him who, when driven 



94 SERMON VII. 

from the Sanhedrim, fled to the Synagogue, and then, 
with an ecstasy before unfelt, proclaimed, " By grace are 
you saved ;" grace infinitely rich, grace divinely free, 
grace which has made heaven glad and earth rejoice in 
the great declaration, " The gift of God is eternal life, 
through Jesus Christ the Lord." As a gift it would not 
be taken, by wages it could not be earned ; hence the 
subject of our text was sad at the saying of the Lord, 
and went away sorrowful. How did he go away ? 

2d question. He went very sorrowful. In each of 
the Gospels there is something deeply suggestive as to 
the feeling he evinced at his departure from the Master. 
A thorough change is evident. By one of the evan- 
gelists the term used describes the deepening and dark- 
ening of a storm. By another, the word which describes 
the sorrow of the soul of the Lord. Put all together, 
and we find it deep dejection of heart. It was bitter 
disappointment. He came, a self-righteous man ; he 
went, a man self-condemned and self-exposed. An 
arrow of conviction rankled when he came ; it was as if 
a score tortured as he left. When he came, he could 
say, " All these have I kept from my youth." Never 
again could that be said. Sadder than all, he went 
away, though sharply convicted, undecided still. 

He was condemned by the past and troubled by the 
future. He can keep his possessions, but how long ? 
He goes to the ancestral home, back to the shade of the 
old trees, back to the old associations, but all seems 
changed. He went to ask concerning eternal life, but 
giver and gift have both been left behind. And for 
what has he left them ? He keeps his possessions, but 



SERMON VII. 95 

they in perfect peace can't keep him ; can never again 
delight as once they did. The lightened burden and 
the easy yoke he would not take ; the weight upon his 
heart he can't throw off. At the thought of the cost of his 
possessions, every shekel of his great wealth seemed to 
have a voice : " Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-day." 
Perhaps a compromise suggests itself. The God of this 
world, in whose bands he seems so tightly bound, often 
suggests that. " A compromise !" Is he not a high 
Jewish ruler? is it not his pride to be called a son of 
Abraham ? When God tested him, gladly would he 
have given the world had he possessed it, and been 
spared the sacrifice of his son, but he obeyed, without 
thought of compromise. No wonder he went away sor- 
rowful. No religious compromises ever yet brought 
peace. Conscience will not take a stone when she cries 
for bread ; her controversies are never settled save when 
settled right. God must give the peace for which the 
soul yearns. Without it there is no peace. With his 
gift, it all is peace. 

I think I see him as he turns away, mourned and 
pitied by his best and truest friends, the Lord and His 
disciples. They follow him in sight until the receding 
form fades from view, in the silence of sad hearts as sor- 
rowful, if not more sorrowful, even than his. Many a 
one whose commission is to speak the words of eternal 
life to those whose lovely characters all have learned to 
love knows something of how these disciples felt that 
day. With a feeling many a hearer knows little of, we 
look after them as they go from us. Convictions stifled, 
their portion chosen, the eternal inheritance apparently 



g6 SERMON VII. 

discarded. The Saviour, who loves them most, and 
would win them, persistently rejected. And it makes 
the picture still a shade darker to think of that which 
forms our third topic : 

What they go from. The man who turns his back 
upon the Redeemer goes from a religion which in the 
heart and life, both here and hereafter, is a well-spring 
of joy. It is misunderstood by the world, and is often 
even by its adherents misinterpreted. Still its leading 
feature is joy forever. 

Not the mere sensational pleasure which is so often 
misnamed joy, — an external, adventitious thing, which 
comes and goes like the sunshine among the valleys, — 
but a living principle, indestructible as is the very exist- 
ence of the eternal Father who imparts it, and infinite as 
is His knowledge of the wants and the woes of the human 
soul. A joy which is not reserved for heaven only, but 
gives many a sweet foretaste of heaven in the varied 
spiritual delights of earth. And strange it is that one 
of the best, the most delightful of allotments God ever 
gives to man, was that rejected by the young man of 
the text. 

" Sell that thou hast and give to the poor." The 
Master would make him his own almoner, and to know 
something of his own joy, who continually went about 
doing good. How many griefs he might have healed, 
how many sufferers relieved ! what busy days, what 
blessed hours might have been his ! His very presence 
carrying sunbeams into darkened homes, and mercies 
like flowers springing up along his path. As Job said, 
he might have said of himself, " When the ear heard 



SERMON VII. 97 

me, then it blessed me ; and when the eye saw me, then 
it gave witness of me : because I delivered the poor that 
cried, the fatherless, and him that had none to help him." 

Rogers, the poet, has preserved a story told him by a 
Piedmontese nobleman : " I was heavy of life, and after 
a melancholy day was hurrying along the street to the 
river. I felt a sudden check. I turned ; a little boy, in 
his anxiety to arrest my attention, had caught hold of 
my cloak. His look and manner were irresistible. Not 
less so what he said. ' There are six of us, and we are 
dying for want of food.' Why should I not relieve this 
wretched family ? I have the means, and it will take 
but a few minutes. He conducted me to the scene of 
misery. I cannot describe it. I threw them my purse, 
and their burst of gratitude overcame me. It filled my 
eyes ; it went as cordial to my heart. ' I will call again 
to-morrow.' Fool that I was, to think of leaving a 
world when so much pleasure is to be had, and so 
cheaply." And such is but a tithe of what the rejector 
of Christ, even in this life, turns away from. 

Darker still the picture when, as he went from Christ, 
you think what he went to. You can anticipate me by 
saying he went back to the world. True, but it was not 
as it had been. Those who get near to Christ, and then 
reject Him, can never be as when before they knew 
Him ; the best emotions stifled, the noblest convictions 
hushed ; the rule almost invariably is that to both the 
church and the world they become soured, often cynical. 
A fearful thing it is to " fight God's mercy." His battle- 
ground is ever after changed. 

As the course of nature is, he lived on perhaps 



98 SERMON VII. 

through many years. Sometimes the hope will come 
that, while still on Mercy's footstool, he may again have 
sought and by the Saviour have been accepted. All we 
can say is that a weight rests upon the heart as we 
think of the silence which has settled on his history. It 
is an eloquent and admonitory silence. Nature, we 
know, takes no note of unbelief, nor any note of a man's 
possessions. The wheels of time rolled over and over 
as before. The palatial home has gone, the great pos- 
sessions all have perished, the land he prized is desolate, 
the generation he knew has vanished, but he still lives ; 
that soul of his, by his Saviour so dearly loved, some- 
where among the sentient existences of God's universe 
still exists and still remembers, its histories ever vivid, 
its sensibilities and intelligence keener than ever. When 
the last breath on earth was drawn, of what sort that 
meeting was with that Saviour from whom, with a hard 
proud heart, he once turned away, has not been given us 
to know, and beyond this point we dare not press. 

But this we know : that in all the sacred record no 
case more alarming than this has ever been presented. 
How loudly it calls professing Christians to try the 
foundations on which their hopes rest ! Are there not 
many who in their life, their intercourse with their fel- 
lows, their disposition and deportment, fall short of one 
who himself fell short of life eternal ? If he missed 
the prize, what feasible, possible ground have they to 
hope for it? His moral courage, so far as it went; his 
earnestness, even of the kind it was ; his profound respect 
for the Master, even of its peculiar type, all went farther 
than can be said of many a professing Christian. 



SERMON VII. 99 

His was a loveliness that drew out the love both of 
God and man. No wonder that the disciples, when 
they saw such a man turn his back upon Christ, and 
heard the saying of the Lord that followed it, were 
astonished out of measure, and said, " Who then can be 
saved ?" If this good ship does not make the harbor, 
what hope is there for others ? The Master tells us how 
to answer that question. All, even the greatest sinners, 
can be saved who seek what this young man lacked. If 
a man clinging to a wreck will stay in the sinking ship, 
lost he must be. But if, when the hand of divine love 
and power be put forth, and he lays hold on eternal life, 
he shall be saved ; saved in spite of his riches, saved in 
spite of his poverty, in spite of all his sins. Eternal life 
is God's gift, and He only asks that as His gift it be 
humbly, willingly, and unconditionally accepted. 

To this young man it was offered, but he went away 
sorrowful. Accept it, and you shall go away joyful ; 
not gloomy, but glad ; rejoicing in the Lord, and prais- 
ing the God of your salvation. Cost what apparent 
or immediate self-denial it may, cast yourself at the 
Saviour's feet, and rise to say, " Ah, Lord, I accept this 
cross. Lead on, O Lord, lead on ! for sure I am Thou 
wilt guide me with Thy counsel while I live; and after- 
ward will receive me to Thy glory." 



VIII. 

"Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, 
who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye 
know how that afterward, when he woidd have inherited 
the blessing, he was rejected : for he found no place of 
repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." — 
Hebrews xii. 16, 17. 

These words form part of one of the most solemn 
and grandest appeals found in all the writings of the 
New Testament. Though addressed primarily to the 
Christian Hebrews, they have been handed down as the 
inheritance of all the generations. The apostle seems 
to have known nothing of that difficulty, so common 
nowadays, of finding the most pungent among solemn 
warnings, as well as the most gracious examples of the 
Spirit's teaching, in the lives of Old Testament charac- 
ters. Jacob, Esau, Isaac, and Rebecca, all who had 
figured in this morally dark picture in patriarchal his- 
tory, had long been dead and gone. The withered 
leaves of eighteen hundred years lay between Esau and 
Paul when this text was penned. Between Paul and us 
lie nearly nineteen hundred years more. Yet is it as 
much for us as though we looked at and listened to 
the apostle as it fell from his living lips. All divine 
truth, whether of ancient or more recent revelation, is 
100 



SERMON VIII. IOI 

directed to the entire human family, because of the 
unity of the family through all the ages. Geologists 
tell us, says a fine writer, that as you go deep down 
through the outer crust of the earth, beneath which are 
her caverns and abysses and seemingly fathomless 
depths, you find " immense and definite strata which 
bind together the antipodes themselves with a gigantic 
chain of stone." So to-day the rich and the poor, the 
learned and unlearned, philosopher and savage, have 
that one touch of nature which makes all the world 
akin. We see, too, as we compare the scenes and the 
actors of to-day with those on the stage when the race 
was in very infancy, that the evidences of kinship are 
as many as the centuries which, like an unbroken chain, 
connect Jacob and Esau and their times with us and 
ours. Our text takes us back to the history and the 
consequences of a bargain between two brothers, than 
which, as has been truly said, a more foolish or insane 
bargain was never struck. It is so from any side of 
the many-sided history from which you may choose to 
view it. We might speak of the foul conspiracy against 
a blind father and an unsuspecting brother, planned by 
the mother, and jointly executed by herself and her son ; 
and we might speak, too, of the righteous retributive 
justice of Him who is no respecter of persons, as it fell 
in fearful blows from the day of that deception to the 
days of their death. That would be a divergence from 
the point before us. With a minuteness and an in- 
tegrity in the detail which establishes the divinity of the 
record, the peculiarity of the sins of parents and sons 
are laid bare with a fidelity which shrinks from no 



102 SERMON VIII. 

inspection, however close, and shrinks from the inflic- 
tion of no penalty, however severe, even though that 
penalty must fall upon His best beloved. But the 
particular sin of Esau, the divine dealing with it, and 
the lessons to be derived from it form the chief points 
which in the text demand our attention. So to form 
a true conception of his guilt we must first consider 
what was the "birthright." It was to enjoy to the 
full the inheritance of that signal blessing which God 
had solemnly sworn to Abraham when He said, " Get 
thee . . . unto a land that I will show thee : and I will 
make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and 
make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing." 
Esau well knew that that meant incalculable benefit, 
both temporal and spiritual. He knew also that in the 
line of the first-born son it was to go down through the 
ages, until He should come who in Eden, after the fall, 
had been promised to our first parents, that One of 
whom David sang long afterwards, " Men shall be 
blessed in him, and all nations shall call him blessed." 

As the grandson of Abraham, Esau knew he was in 
the line of descent to be one of the chiefs in the succes- 
sion, to have a double portion of his father's wealth, 
and to have a position alike honored and honorable in 
that nation which was to be as the stars of heaven for 
multitude. But a higher than any temporal advantage, 
or all combined, was involved in the spiritual blessing 
belonging to the birthright. The highest sacerdotal 
office belonged to him as priest ; it was his to offer the 
sacrifice on behalf of the family, and, when occasion 
called, like Abraham, to intercede with God for his 






SERMON VIII. 103 

people. Never did a grander panorama of the future 
roll out before any young man than was his. The 
narrative of the fatal day he came in from the field, 
and when he made the profane exchange, is singularly 
exact, and full of intense, almost dramatic, interest. 
Our interest in it all deepens when we consider that in 
our modern life, here and now, as well as in the ancient 
days, there are many Esaus menaced by the same temp- 
tations before which the Oriental Esau fell. Graphic as 
is the story, it could have no practical interest for any 
one now, were it not coupled with the caution of the 
text, " Looking diligently lest there be any fornicator, or 
profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat 
sold his birthright." His, therefore, was a beacon life, 
which still casts its lurid warning glare over human his- 
tory, and over those fatal waters which lie in wait to 
swallow the unwary. Of like solemn warnings human, 
as well as divine, record is full ; not dotted here and 
there, but thickly studded. We are taught here how 
the best instincts may be sacrificed to appetite, how a 
noble nature may be debased, and how, after the very 
finest prospects, the " afterward " of old age may come 
in bitter regrets, in ruin, and heart-brokenness, in impo- 
tent repentance. For we know how afterward, when he 
would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected ; for 
" he found no place of repentance, though he sought it 
carefully with tears." 

The divine hand, in the book of Genesis, has vividly 
portrayed two scenes in the lives of these twin brothers 
to which we must now turn for a few moments. The 
first is when, after perhaps a day of hunting, Esau 



104 SERMON VIII. 

comes in from the field hungry and exhausted. The 
flavor of the savory food, of which he is fond, meets 
him. He makes his request to his brother; the re- 
quest will be granted upon certain conditions. The 
conditions were not honoring to God, who, before the 
birth of her sons, as both well knew, had predicted 
to their mother the supremacy of the younger. Based 
upon a spirit of craft and cunning, Jacob dishonored 
himself in the cruel advantage taken of a hungry 
brother. But the proposal was accepted, the deed 
done, and scaled by an oath. Esau said, " Behold, I 
am at the point to die : and what good shall this 
birthright do to me ?" Do you believe he thought he 
was about to die ? Birthright or no birthright, the 
dish suited to the keen appetite of a man fresh from the 
pursuit of prey upon the mountains is no sign of near- 
ness to death. The bare fact is that the animal appetite 
of the man craved food, and that most strongly. At all 
hazards, he was determined to have it. The language 
of his act was just this: " I will always have as much 
as I shall need. My arm, with bow and quiver, will 
always serve me well. As for cattle and flocks and 
herds, I have of them all that any man can need. And 
the birthright? What is there in it that Jacob finds on 
which to feast the eye of envy ? I want not the honors 
or advantages in the far-off dim distance ; pottage here 
and now is better far than priesthood yonder ! What 
are invisible possessions compared with tangible food?" 
So they struck the bargain, and Esau ate the pottage. 
As he ate he must have felt a twinge of conscience, asso- 
ciated with the conviction that he had been outwitted. 



SERMON VIII. 105 

There was meanness in the act of his brother ; he felt 
it, and fancied he was victimized, and, it is said, " He 
despised the birthright." The spirit of the transaction, 
too, all despise. But go on a little farther, and note 
that each pays the appropriate penalty; like produces 
like; both suffer, each after his kind, under the 
righteous retributive justice of God. Soon we meet 
them again. The first bitter fruits of the barter, together 
with the universal loathing of the mother and the son 
who could conspire in such a plot, comes before us. 
The exceeding bitter cry of Esau when the blessing has 
gone beyond retrieval is one of the most pathetic in the 
literature of the world ; in pathos only equalled by 
David's lament over Absalom. Had Rebecca and her 
favorite but waited upon Providence, instead of run- 
ning before Him, they could have entered upon an 
honorable possession, rather than by treachery and 
stealth. But here it must be remembered that no 
adroitness in the temptation on the part of Jacob can be 
accepted as any excuse, or even palliation, for the weak- 
ness and irreverence of Esau. We know that when 
Esau sold the birthright, he was undoubtedly the victim 
of a strong temptation. " Every languid pulse" (it has 
been well said) " turned devil's advocate." Still none but 
a man among the morally weakest could have done as 
he did, this Esau, who truly represents thousands upon 
thousands to-day, and how well comes in there the 
caution to us all to Consider diligently. We are all 
very clever in shifting responsibility, and persuading 
ourselves that we are " more to be pitied than blamed." 
It is always convenient to have some one or some thing 



106 SERMON VIII. 

on whom to put the weight of wrong. It is the serpent 
now ; it is an unhappy combination of circumstances 
again ; it is the peril of compromising our social, or even 
our religious, standing another time by being too rigid, 
too strict, too narrow ; and so the excuses run, and with 
facile ingenuity are multiplied. But does any one think 
that these excuses can be accepted at the judgment day ? 
Was Esau's accepted, the day he uttered that bitter cry 
which from that day to this has rung through all the 
ages? No lamentation was then heard that he was 
" the victim of circumstances." On every side he saw, 
as many and many a man sees now, that he is sur- 
rounded by circumstances of which, in the days of his 
youth, he was the architect himself. Our Saviour, who 
is ever to be our pattern, saw all the glory of the 
world pass before Him, and yet uttered no even half- 
whispered word of hesitating allegiance to evil. No; 
God never made a man, and left him to be " a creature 
of circumstances;" He made him able to withstand all 
the moral adversaries that fain would make his cir- 
cumstances. If a man be a glutton, or drunkard, or 
impure, liar, or thief, his opportunities of evil will not 
absolve him. Thousands upon thousands before him 
and around him have had the same opportunities, and 
have remained unseduced. "Esau despised Jacob." 
Yes, and there is no doubt but in his heart of hearts, 
after the dearly bought meal, he despised himself. The 
excuses men make for themselves soon cease to pass 
current at the bar of their own consciences, as well as 
at the tribunal of heaven. But here in the text are two 
words which seem at first strangely severe : " Any forni- 



SERMON VIII. 107 

cator, or profane person, as Esau." In depicting char- 
acters there are no more terrible words in the Bible than 
these. You ask what had he done to deserve such a 
verdict of reproach ? He gratified his appetite in total 
disregard of the divine favor, — the sensual before him 
was all ; the spiritual, nothing. He did what every man 
does to-day who gives the rein to his appetites, and 
finds his highest pleasures in the sensations and desires 
of the flesh. He did what every man does who either 
despises or neglects those spiritual realities which are, 
in fact, the only real or permanent things in life ; who 
either appraises religion with cheap scorn or dismisses 
its claims with guilty indifference. He did that which 
every youth is tempted to do to-day, — to ignore the 
eternal for the temporal, the invisible for the tangible ; 
to make it his supreme ambition to secure the savory 
messes of wealth and earthly position at the cost of his 
birthright to an inheritance already purchased, — a king- 
ship and a priesthood infinitely surpassing the grandest 
conceptions of patriarchs or visions of the prophets. It 
is thus that Esau's sin must be measured, and measured 
alongside so much of the sin that on every hand abounds 
to-day. To be the first-born, according to the standards 
of his time, was the highest privilege of earth that God 
conferred upon a man. When we think of the con- 
temptuous indifference with which it was spurned ; that 
it was, as one has said, the casting of God's gift back in 
His teeth, Paul's words in our text, hard as they are, 
are yet deeply, sadly true words. " A profane person." 
Surely that imputation passes over our heads, you say. 
" Profane ?" Ah, friends, there is an irreverence of the 



I08 SERMON VIII. 

heart, and consequently of the life, even though there 
be no profanity on the lips. Was Esau guilty of the 
gross sin charged him ? Fornication is not one form of 
sin merely ; it is the type of all those gross lusts of the 
flesh which obscure, choke, and shrivel up all that is 
pure, spiritual, and noble in the man. If in life we 
know no higher object of life than to eat and drink and 
be merry, then appetite becomes the law of life, and the 
pleasures of appetite the supreme passion. " Profane," 
— not in spoken blasphemy, surely, but living only for 
the seen. What is it when from the cross Christ calls, 
and you refuse even to turn the head ? We almost 
shudder at the acted profanity of the men who at the 
foot of the cross parted his garments among them ; yet 
the profanity of many a man under Gospel influence to- 
day is that he " crucifies him afresh and puts him to an 
open shame." Many a one bearing the Christian name 
profanely dishonors the Christian's birthright by the 
lottery deal, or the wagered drink, or the election bet, or 
the tossing of the die, and so " upon his vesture casting 
lots" And thus is Esau's sin repeated, — the birthright 
profanely bartered, and for what ? The text answers : 
" For a morsel of meat;" " Who for one morsel of meat 
sold his birthright." It is easy to say, " Fool," and true 
enough the profane exchange, the disproportion, was 
fearfully foolish. Yet the profane folly is being repeated 
every day. There are men who, in the presence of some 
great temptation, have wavered for days and for weeks, 
conscience pulling one way and the flesh the other, and 
at length they have yielded ; and then, self-respect gone, 
principle gone, peace gone, and what in exchange ? 



SERMON VIII. I09 

Ask that when the lights of life burn dim, when the feast 
is over, when the last dawn breaks in upon the disordered 
life, and when remorse begins to utter its sad wail. Truly, 
the devil's wages make poor pay. All that is noble, that 
is sweet, that is joyous in spirit, the best for two worlds, 
taken, and a morsel of meat in return. Consider, then, 
that what he takes is irrevocably, irretrievably gone. He 
may take it so imperceptibly that his victim is scarcely 
conscious of loss. But a time comes when all is realiza- 
tion. To Esau came the awful day when his heart was 
broken within him, and the exceeding bitter cry rang 
out, " Bless me, even me also, O my father." Is it 
true, then, that a man may repent " bitterly and with 
tears, and find no place for repentance " ? True is it 
in this sense : By no miracle of mercy can the conse- 
quences of sin and folly be changed, nor a bartered 
birthright be restored. That which for a morsel of meat 
had been sold was gone ; Isaac could only say, " Thy 
brother came and took it. I have blessed him, — yea, 
and he shall be blessed." But hear : all was not lost for 
Esau, nor for any man who with change of heart and 
mind will see his sin to be the sin it is. Then, too, 
can the loving Father bring the broken-hearted penitent 
home. 

Plenteous in mercy, He is ever ready to forgive and 
to bestow. A day came when the brothers feared not 
to look into each other's face : when Jacob was pressed 
to Esau's bosom, and buried in one grave were Esau's 
wrongs and Jacob's crimes. 

A scene of warning, yet of comfort. With genuine 
repentance for sin, with faith in that blood which 



110 SERMON VIII. 

cleanseth from all sin, we may go to our God. Once we 
were enemies to Him. But with the assurance of entire 
•pardon, and accepting the provisions of an unchanging 
covenant, we can say, " If, when we were enemies, we 
were reconciled to God by the death of his Son ; much 
more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." 



IX. 

" If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which 
are above, zvhere Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." 
— Col. iii. i. 

This text very naturally divides itself into two parts. 
First, it delineates a character; and, second, it enjoins 
a duty. Taking the topics in their order, we will con- 
sider, first, who they are thus described as risen with 
Christ. You remember it is written by the Evangelist 
Matthew, as he records the awful events attendant upon 
the Redeemer's death, " Jesus, when he had cried with 
a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the 
vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to 
the bottom ; and the earth did quake, and the rocks 
rent ; and the graves were opened ; and many bodies 
of the saints which slept arose, and came out of their 
graves after his resurrection." Every circumstance con- 
nected with the death of Jesus shows the connection 
between His resurrection and that of His saints at the 
final judgment. His ascent from the grave was a fit 
counterpart of His descent from the skies, both events 
being characterized by manifestations of the divinity 
that touched with resplendent glory the darkest mys- 
teries of His life. He left heaven attended by a train of 
angels ; the work done, the atonement made, the sacri- 
fice offered, He returned to His Father's right hand 
with a retinue whom He had delivered from the power of 
death, and, in every sense of the word, had restored to 

m 



112 SERMON IX. 

life. In a sense in which, ah ! Father, grant that we all 
shall understand, as that glorified band understood, they 
were risen with Christ. But not to them were these 
words of our text originally addressed. Had they been 
addressed only to them, they would have little interest 
and less application to us. Spoken as they were, they 
bear equally on the whole Church of Christ and in 
every age of the world. To get at their real meaning 
we musf go back a little. In the last verses of the 
chapter preceding the text the apostle speaks of Chris- 
tian character by another metaphor : of being dead with 
Christ from the rudiments of the world. This on the 
apostle's lips is no piece of mysticism, or of rhetoric 
merely. With every real Christian, the cross of Christ 
is first and foremost the altar of sacrifice ; on which the 
oblation was laid that took away all guilt and sin ; in 
doing that it became the law of his life, and so assimi- 
lated him to his Lord. At first sight, there seems some 
mysticism about dying with Christ, but the plain Eng- 
lish is just this, that when any one becomes a Christian, 
by putting his whole trust for eternal acceptance upon 
the death of Christ, a change takes place upon the 
entire character, illustrated by a death. In ordinary 
speech the illustration is very frequent. What do we 
mean when we say (as so often we do) that a man 
(either for the better or the worse) "is dead" to former 
habits, companions, or associations ? when old, that he 
is dead to former follies, passions, or ambitions ? Do 
we not mean that they have ceased to interest him, that 
he is separated from them, that he has become insensible 
to them ? Are not instances of this within the knowl- 



SERMON IX. 113 

edge of every one who has attained even to middle life ? 
— men loathing what formerly they loved, even caring 
not when an enterprise that once absorbed all their 
energies before their very eyes crumbles to pieces. 
Then let no one be astonished when God's word forces 
this most familiar truth upon pur minds, of " dying with 
our Lord ;" at another, of " rising with him." So if we 
have taken hold of Christ as our Saviour, if the faith, 
hope, and love of His inspiration be within us, will it not 
deaden us to the empty joys and poor earthly aims which 
before formed our life? Practically, even the world's 
best thinkers and closest observers act toward us on this 
very principle. It is hardly necessary here to proclaim 
that the measure by which we are joined to our Lord in 
His great sacrifice is the very measure by which we 
are detached from our former selves, and our old objects 
of deep interest and of earnest pursuit. At this day, 
there is no truth which needs to be more strongly urged 
than this. Professedly, the entire Christian Church be- 
lieves that the sacrifice on Calvary was that of God's 
own Son, and that that was offered as a propitiation for 
our sins. That surely is the profession of Christendom. 
But what of that, if that belief has not changed the pat- 
tern of our lives, if experimentally we know nothing of 
dying with Christ? Do I sound a groundless alarm 
when I say it surely is to be feared that, if we know 
nothing of being in this sense dead with Christ, w r e 
know as little of Christ's dying for us ? We need to be 
in our times especially alert to the dangers of false 
influences upon ourselves and our families. The very 
thought of the advent of Christ, the story of the man- 



114 SERMON IX. 

ger, the heavenly host, the natal hymn, should fill every 
Christian home and heart with a joy unspeakable. But 
what is the fact ? Autumnal breezes have scarce begun 
to blow when the commercial and the social world are 
alive in preparation for Christmas ; and when it comes, 
it is almost all Christmas, and almost no more room 
for Christ than there was in the inn of Bethlehem. 
And then comes Passion Week, culminating in all the 
mournful associations of Good Friday ; a good Friday it 
surely were, did it only give evidence of the application of 
those individual tests which by the Eternal Spirit tell of 
bearing not on one day only, but, as the word of Jesus 
puts it, daily bearing about with us the dying of the 
Lord Jesus. And now we stand upon that day on 
which multitudes specially rejoice as the day of the risen 
Saviour. Far be it from us to assail the sincerity of any 
who by these human appointments find access to Him 
in whom we all must die, if by Him we all shall rise 
again. But just as far be it from us to turn away from 
that which, in solemn warning, in the words preceding 
the text, the apostle pronounces against as the doctrines 
and precepts of men. In no part of the Bible are we 
more earnestly warned against a misapprehension of 
the true genius of Christianity than here. In religion 
man's work trends toward the outward appearance. 
God's work in religion is to drive it all inward ; to focus 
it all upon the hidden man of the heart. For if that be 
right within, then will the outward and the visible be 
right also. What a waste of labor it is to stick figs 
upon a thorn-bush ! It still remains the thorn-bush. 
A good thing, and very needful too, is the military drill, 



SERMON IX. 115 

and, in its place, the polish of the parade-ground. A 
disciplined valor is better by far than a valor undisci- 
plined. But what on the field of battle is discipline 
without dash ? What the drill without the spirit of the 
soldier? the spirit of consecration to the cause for 
which he fights ? the spirit in which self for the time 
seems all forgotten ? I once stood with an officer upon 
a rock where, in a desperate struggle years before, he 
had been stationed, and while there severely wounded. 
Said he, " I knew nothing of it until, when asked where 
I had been shot, I saw the blood flowing upon the rock." 
Christ would have every soldier of the cross thus 
absorbed. He would fill our souls with strong emotions 
and with noble desires, while He would deaden us to 
all that is detrimental to our highest, sweetest joys, 
either here or hereafter. For this purpose comes the 
text of this day. Beautiful decorations please the eye, 
artistic music delights the ear ; but, above all, comes the 
loving Saviour's voice. He seems to say, " Ye rejoice 
because it is written, That as Christ died and was buried 
and rose again, even so them that sleep in Jesus will 
God bring with Him. Partakers with Christ in His 
death, ye also are in His resurrection. If then ye be 
risen with Him, seek those things which are above, 
where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God." When 
Paul preached Christ, he declared the fact of Christ's 
resurrection in a tone, as well as with proof, so indis- 
putable as left it beyond a doubt. But this to him was 
not enough. Neither to any of us is it enough. " That 
/ may know him," saith he, " and the power of his 
resurrection." As said a disciple on that third day, 



Il6 SERMON IX. 

" Christ is risen indeed," we to-day say ; but further 
must we go, and ask, " What know we of the power 
wrought in us by His resurrection ?" In other words, 
What know we of that spiritual life produced alone by 
union with Christ? It is not enough that I live the 
animal life; the more it is fed the more are the higher 
lives starved and dwindled. It is not enough that I live 
the life of intellect and feeling ; that may be in brightest, 
keenest exercise, and yet our best selves may be sepa- 
rated from God in Christ, and consequently our name to 
live be but a name. But if a man be a partaker of the 
power of Christ's resurrection, or, in other words,, be 
risen with Christ, all men, good and bad, soon see that 
his changed life is more than a name. It was proved 
in the changed condition of those heathen converts of 
Colosse, to whom this epistle was originally addressed. 
Picked from conditions of vice too foul to be here even 
named, set upon a pure path, flooded with a heavenly 
light, they gave evidence of a blessed hope, brightening 
an entire new life. Thus must it be always and every- 
where. The plain fact is, that if a man's Christianity 
does not produce in him a radical moral change, it is 
nothing. The highest purpose of Christ's work, for 
which He both died and rose again, is to change us into 
the likeness of His own beauty, — the beauty of moral 
purity. Do I say I am a Christian ? The test by which 
the claim must be tried is the likeness of my life here to 
Him who died to sin and now liveth at the right hand 
of God. But to be risen with Christ is to be partakers 
with Him in His resurrection and of His victory over 
death. 



SERMON IX. 117 

If, in imagination, we place ourselves beside the tomb 
of Jesus, see the stone rolled away, then see Him come 
forth, then hear Him say, " As I live, ye shall live also," 
then the actual sense of His abiding presence, because 
now we know His word must be true, and that as it is 
proved there that He cannot be holden of death, so 
must it be that neither can we. As He is forever undy- 
ing, so ever must we be. Here, then, know we in some 
sense, in some part, the power of His resurrection. 
" The waters in the reservoir and the fountain are the 
same." The sunbeam that enters the chamber of sick- 
ness, or sorrow, or death is the same that is in the sky. 
The life which Christ imparts is a life that has conquered 
death, even though through its deep dark waters we 
must go. The bands He broke can never be riveted 
upon any one of His people. He so completely spoiled 
the gates of death, when as Conqueror He passed 
through, that never on one of His people could they be 
closed again. Many are the arguments in favor of that 
glorious doctrine that " this corruptible must put on 
incorruption," but from all eternity it was decreed that 
there should be but one proof of it. That proof was 
given in the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. So 
clinging by faith to Him, our souls bound with Him in 
the bundle of life, we can cherish the blessed peace given 
by our Father, who hath " begotten us again, to a lively 
hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." 
And then saith this blessed word, " Your life is hid with 
Christ in God," — a hidden life! But how hidden? 
Hidden in the glory which is inaccessible, which no 
eye hath seen or can see. Paul himself appears to stop 



Il8 SERMON IX. 

short; he can only say, "where Christ sitteth on the 
right hand of God." But how full those words are! 
They seem to tell of familiar, intimate access to Him 
who at the Father's right hand wields omnipotent 
power, — a power ever exercised on behalf of those who 
by His death and resurrection from the power of death 
have been delivered. Nor is this all. The future per- 
sonal manifestation of the Saviour is glory ; is that 
for which, according to all New Testament teaching, we 
are privileged to look. As the incarnation led to Cal- 
vary, as Calvary led to the sepulchre, as the empty grave 
led to the throne, so the throne now leads to His com- 
ing again in glory. As with Christ, so with His servants, 
— the manifestation in glory is the certain end of all that 
precedes, as surely as that the tiny green leaves which 
through these early April days have begun to peep 
through the ground are the precursors of the flowers 
which soon will deck the earth. 

Ah ! what a motive power it would be, could we 
always remember that nothing in the grand future, how- 
ever grand and glorious that future may be, but has 
its germ, the beginning of its life, here in our union 
with Christ. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, 
then shall we also appear with Him. If we be risen 
with Him, the life here is surely a hidden life ; it strug- 
gles against many an obstacle, and often seems to be a 
poor, weak, imperfect life. But the day comes when 
the stammering tongue and the imperfect deeds shall be 
no more. We shall appear with Him ; appear to be 
just what we are. Here the roots of our life are in 
Him, but that life at best in character can with us be 



SERMON IX. 119 

only partly visible ; but then the life in us shall be 
manifested as that life was in Him. Every eye shall 
behold Him, and His own who here are known as risen 
with Him shall then be known as glorified with Him. 
His name shall be in their foreheads. No longer par- 
tially visible only, no longer written with so many a blur 
on the fleshly tablets of the heart, they shall walk in 
the light, and so shall be seen of all. " Here the truest 
followers of Christ shine like intermittent stars seen 
through mist and driving cloud ; then they shall blaze 
forth like the sun, in the kingdom of my Father." Nor 
is this all. This manifestion so glorious shall be with 
Him. The union on earth effected by faith, and so 
effecting a spiritual resurrection, is marred by many 
an obstacle of sin and of selfishness ; at best the risen 
life here is but a poor compromise between contempla- 
tion or purpose and action ; there, without a break, His 
servants shall serve Him, and shall see His face. Like 
Martha, they shall serve Him, but while they serve be 
ever with Him ; like Mary, they shall sit in rapt contem- 
plation at His feet. 

With such a prospect in view of all who will but take 
it at the Redeemer's offer, one would think that no 
injunction or entreaty would ever be needed to " seek 
those things that are above," with Christ at God's right 
hand. But still, true it is, we all need it, and we always 
need it, even though we consult at once our duty and 
our happiness when we obey it. The ivy which throws 
its arms around a hollow and rotten tree dooms itself 
one day to be crushed, and they are laying by suffering 
for a future day who allow affections which should be 



120 SERMON IX. 

trained for the skies to be entangled with objects which 
not this world only, but our own experience tells us, 
perish with the use. Let us all keep well in mind that 
no man can serve two masters, but every man must serve 
one. A Lot may go to Sodom, but our Father loves 
His child well enough to drive him out of it. While 
some may have the ship set for the heavenly haven, their 
hearts still may be set upon gathering earth's treasures 
more than the highest. To save these souls He will sink 
their treasures. He will cast away the cargo to save the 
ship. He will deliver them from idolatry, even if He 
must destroy their most cherished idols. Yes, by a bitter 
experience He is telling us every day that " he builds too 
low who builds beneath the skies." Are we to be in the 
world, and do the duties of the world, and be separate 
from the world? Yes, just as oil among the waters is 
separate from it. So far from doing our earthly duties 
worse, we do them better, by seeking the things that are 
above. Then what our hands find to do we can do with 
our might, the hope of rest strengthening us for labor, 
the example of the Redeemer inspiring us with ardor, 
and no fear of disappointment at last clouding our pros- 
pects or weakening us by the way. Let, then, our text 
in its blessed truth bring inspiration for Lord's day and 
week-day. " If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those 
things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right 
hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not 
on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life 
is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our 
life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in 
glory." 



X. 

" While we look not at the things which are seen, but at 
the things which are not seen: for the tilings which are 
seen are temporal ; but the things which are not seen are 
eternal." — II. Cor. iv. 18. 

There is an occupation so constant with almost all 
that surrounds us, and an interest in it all so deep, that 
we have some fear of a somewhat unconscious opposi- 
tion on the part of our hearers to the selection of the 
theme presented by the text. At the time these words 
were first written it was as it is with us to-day. The 
apostle, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, was 
writing to a people who worked just as we are work- 
ing ; whose life, like our lives, was made up in seeing 
and hearing and handling, and rendering service, for 
the most part, earthly, ordinary, and coarse enough. 
Yet it is easy to see that the supreme object of his, as 
of all true gospel preaching, is to show that God would 
have us be both righteous and busy; have us live 
lives, while on the ground and among things that are 
earthly, with our vision not limited by the near and the 
seen, but extended to the far, and even into the unseen. 
There is a sense in which a man's look indicates his 
life. There is nothing in a look directed into vacancy, 
or wandering in search of something curious or a 
9 121 



122 SERMON X. 

pleasure hardly definable. But there is a fixed gaze of 
the mind upon an object, or a class of objects bearing 
upon a moral end, and then the look tells how the per- 
son is living ; the look then is everything. 

In many portions of this word, but expressly in the 
passage before us, we are told that it is one kind of life 
to look at the things that are temporal, and another kind 
of life to look at the things that are eternal : of the 
things that are seen, in the one case ; at the things that 
are unseen, in the other. Not uncharitably, but very 
truly, the one is called the worldly life, for it is spent 
among the visible, the worldly things ; it is ruled by 
them, is bounded by them, has no scope beyond them. 
The other, just as truly, is called the spiritual life, for it 
finds its scope, end, and aim in celestial and invisible 
things. 

Good, yet mournful, reason is there to conclude that 
with by far the larger body of mankind the life with the 
short outlook and the narrow bound is the common life 
of men. Not that any thoughtful intelligent man can 
shut out all views, all consideration of things, invisible, 
and forms unseen by the eye. At times, and in varied 
ways, they force themselves upon every man's thought ; 
the shadows of the forms unseen often fall across every 
man's path. What men feel in those solemn moments 
which often come uninvited, yet, like light from yonder 
world, come irresistibly, flickering through the drapery 
which conceals the unseen, none ever tell. But still 
numbers there are who seem absorbed almost entirely 
in present things. It is not unfair to ask, first, what can 
be said for this course, — looking only at the things that 



SERMON X. 123 

are seen; and, second, what against it, or in favor of 
the things unseen. It is openly said that a worldly life, 
if it be only reputable and useful, is the proper kind of 
life to live while here. That if worldliness be a reproach 
in the Christian estimate, the higher life, with the 
heavenly aim, is also a reproach in the secular estimate. 
It is said the one has to do with the present, and the 
other is the work chiefly of the imagination, unfitting for 
present duties and present realities. Our time here is 
too short, and our eternal interests too momentous, to 
permit even the discussion of such a theory. Consid- 
ered even as intellectual beings, it is the merest trifling 
to tell us that our life need not be different, indeed ought 
to be much the same, whether or not there be a God, or 
whether there be or shall not be an eternal life after 
this. 

Suppose any head of a family here for a time to leave 
his home ; the wants of his family all anticipated, and 
for every actual necessity the most abundant provision 
made ; expecting, as announced, in due time to return, 
and during his absence maintaining affectionate rela- 
tions, and sending kindest communications, and doing 
the very kindest acts for it ; and yet one of his children 
to rise and assert himself thus : " I am in this house, 
and that is all I want to know. As to the headship or 
ownership of it, and my supposed responsibility to be 
settled hereafter, I do not mean to trouble myself. I am 
to live the same life, whether accountable to parent or 
not ; I mean to come in and go out regularly, and go up 
and down at will, and do myself no harm. As for filial 
laws, I find them here, but whether they be obeyed 



124 SERMON X. 

mechanically or not it matters not, so there be a show of 
obedience." We shudder at so daring, so unnatural, an 
avowal. But that is not half so monstrous as for the 
creature to say to the Creator, " To me it matters not 
whether there be a God or not." If there be, it can- 
not be to any intelligent creature the same as if there 
were none. That first and highest fact settles all others. 
It settles the grounds of responsibility, the nature of 
virtue and goodness, and, in short, the whole line of 
duty from first to last. It gives law to the conscience, 
motive to will, a home to the affections, and a satisfying 
eternal portion to the soul. To be without God is to be 
without goodness ; to be that is to be without hope in 
the world. To believe in God is to believe all His state- 
ments ; then inevitably comes faith in a future world. 
Faith in that is as necessary to a right walk through 
this world as faith in the existence of a Creator and 
Governor of both worlds. Blot out all belief in the far 
life, and the near becomes insignificant ; in the great 
essentials of motive to all worthy action, almost mean- 
ingless. The fate of Israel during the forty years' sen- 
tence in the wilderness was sad enough, but sadder far 
had it been had they been told that not one generation 
only, but all their generations were to live, die, and be 
buried amid those sands. To give power to their very 
lives they were kept assured that the land of promise 
lay beyond, and their children from their infancy were 
taught that in their manhood they should enter and 
possess it. Worse by far than the bondage of Egypt 
had they been told that amid those rocks and sands they 
must abide, generation after generation passing into 



SERMON X. 125 

silence, until the wilderness should become one vast 
grave. So this life when sundered from another darkens 
and degenerates ; becomes weariness, mockery, despair. 
And this is the best that can be said about a life of 
which the full scope and last end are found among 
visible things. And when this is the best that can be 
said, it is hardly worth while to say even this. On its 
own showing, it is a poor life. No account can it give 
of its origin, no explanation of its mysteries, no motive 
for its virtues, no consolation for its inevitable sorrows, 
no satisfaction for its own yearnings, no hope for its 
close. By the instinct of immortality in every living 
soul of man, by the sense of an ever-living God which 
in one way or another all great minds and true hearts 
attain to, this Godless theory is contradicted and denied. 
No man who confines his look to the earthly view can 
live, act, suffer, or die as a man should do. An im- 
mortal being can guide himself aright by looking only 
at the things that are unseen, because they are eternal. 
The things that are seen are only temporal. 

But some there are, and not a few, who look at and 
live only in the present, yet have a deep conviction that 
their lives should take in the far wider realm. Were 
such persons pressed for their real views, their true 
intentions, we would find their belief very much like that 
of the Christian, who looks above and far enough beyond 
earth. They would tell you that they believe in God, 
His existence, perfections, government, and actual pres- 
ence among men. They believe too in a future life, in 
which in some way reward will surely be given and 
punishment as surely meted out. They believe also that 



126 SERMON X. 

it would be better from the first to go through this life 
with constant regard to the life that is to follow, and 
that he is the happiest who faithfully, as well as cheer- 
fully, looks to the Master's " Well done, good and 
faithful servant," at the end of all. " Also," so they 
practically tell us, " we mean that our present course 
shall be for but a while ; we mean before death to look 
away from the seen and temporal, far and high, to the 
unseen and eternal. We look for the day when earth's 
purposes will all be served ; the affections then will be 
less engaged, the understanding will then be enlarged. 
The pleasures that come only by the body will then 
have greatly lost their charm, and, with the great future 
so much nearer, to fix the thoughts upon eternal things 
will be so much easier." Specious, but delusive ! 
Many things are against it. Grant that it shall be as 
they plan ; grant that their lives are to be spared until 
the appetites of the body are all cloyed, and the ban- 
quets of sense shall only disgust, and earth's best be 
proved empty as the wind, and in old age the gate of 
heaven be opened. Is there not a meanness in the plan 
which, to be brought into our dealing with any earthly 
benefactor, would cause a man to redden with shame ? 
The best of all that God can give we will take, — that 
which to lis is the choicest and the sweetest, and that 
which no one wants we will give to Him. The strong 
time, the time of growth, of sensation and of joy, we 
will keep. The failing time, the time of shadow, trouble, 
death, we will give to God. And this is the plan of 
many a son and daughter of earth, whom earth calls — 
and perhaps, in an earthly sense, truly enough — high- 



SERMON X. 127 

minded and honorable. Is it ever thought how on 
God's side this plan may be regarded ? Where has He 
promised that His grace shall be given to carry all this 
out? We all feel it is but just that due allowance 
should be made for an offence committed in the frenzy 
of passion, or under great provocation. But this is an 
act not of rejection only, but of determination to serve 
the enemy with the best powers we have so long as any 
service can be rendered ; an act cool, calm, and delib- 
erate ; an act which God may meet by simply taking the 
man at his word. May He not say, " The man deter- 
mines to take the best ; let him have all — all of life in 
guilty estrangement, and then eternity as its legitimate 
fruit " ? But a fatal flaw is in the plan, apparent to all. 
Based on probability, death at any moment may wreck 
it all, and then for both worlds all is wrecked. Nature, 
history, and our own experience all echo the cry that 
this life is too narrow for the soul to live in and grow 
by. True it is that a man can live a sort of life in a 
prison, or, as many do, live their lives in a coal-pit, but 
he was not made for that. To him the wide earth and 
open sky have been given. Within the range of visible 
things, a soul can live a dying life ; but within such a 
range, how can its love be satisfied, its veneration nour- 
ished, its true nobility cultured, or its aspirations be 
guided? Then what is to be done with the burning 
consciousness of its immortality, and its capacities all 
created after the image of God ? 

On every hand are voices which proclaim that this life 
is too narrow, that plead " Let the soul not be bound 
by the things that are seen and temporal ; but with a 



128 SERMON X. 

strength given from God, through Jesus Christ our 
Lord, let it rise to the things unseen and eternal." And 
in God's infinite love He has so ordered the laws of our 
moral life that one cannot " look " — in the sense of this 
word in the text — at anything with habitual desire and 
favor without partaking of its moral qualities and char- 
acteristics. Consciously or unconsciously, we put on a 
resemblance. We shine in its light, or we darken in its 
blackness. If it be a morally hateful thing we look at, 
and we look without any abhorrence, or with secret 
stirrings of desire, we grow hateful as we gaze. If the 
thing be morally fair and we love it, while we look we 
grow fairer in the measure of our affection. Good or 
bad, hateful or lovable, seen and temporal, or spiritual 
and eternal, the soul grows by what it feeds on, and like 
to that which feeds it. In this God has put the stamp 
of wondrous dignity upon the aspirant whom faith is 
ever pointing upward to the eternal portion. It is so 
because man is turned to the most perfect things, and to 
the most glorious persons in the universe ; to a world 
beautifully called " the harvest home of other worlds ;" 
to a city which God declares has no builders besides 
Himself. It is to that celestial commonwealth where 
men and angels meet as brothers. It is to the gathering 
together in one all things in Christ, to the spirits of just 
men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator, to God the 
judge of all. Higher no one can look than up to God's 
own dwelling-place. Loftier companionship none can 
aspire to than that of His kings, His princes, God's 
adopted ones, the sons and daughters of the Lord God 
Almighty. And if what we have said be true, His chil- 



SERMON X. 129 

dren here become great by contemplating such great- 
ness. 

But no peradventure is there. A living faith in Christ, 
by whom we come in possession of all, we are assured 
brings us here and now to the very possession. " We are 
come," saith God's messenger, not " We are to come," 
but in the present ; " we are come to Mount Zion, and 
to the city of the living God." In faith and fellowship, 
in love and longing, we are come. Does He not tell us 
that His angels encamp around the dwellings of His 
people, and are not the precious memories of the spirits 
made perfect, drawing us with irresistible yearnings to 
follow until we overtake and grasp the hands the grave 
now claims, when death will have no more sting, and the 
grave will have lost its power ? This is no mere theory, 
which good people are prone to hold to help their good- 
ness, or to foster a subtile feeling of self-esteem. Have 
we not all seen it at some time, and some of us often ? 
We have seen it on those in high station, tearing down 
the high colors of earth's proud places, and clothing 
them with heaven's graces, the beauty of the Lord their 
God upon them. We have seen it upon the poor, dis- 
pelling for a time the pains of poverty, and giving them 
an air and carriage, a dignity marking them as the children 
of the King. This honor have all His saints. 

Then, again, the long fixed look into the spiritual and 
eternal gives an element of tranquillity amid the cares, 
the stir, the tumult, the daily changes and troubles of 
this world. Who does not know that these are many 
and great ? incessant and sometimes threatening to over- 
whelm ? It is not that often we have a single trouble or 



130 SERMON X. 

care, but their name is legion, and men in active life in 
this day of whirl and toil and commotion very seldom 
can say, " Now we have quietness ; now there is a 
pause." They are worn by the continuance of the strife 
as much as by its severity at any one moment ; and yet 
it seems as if men born for this age must live in it, and 
the circumstances of the age they must meet. But for 
the doing of all this, even with calmness and with profit, 
what a marvellous help comes to those who look far and 
high ! Amid the stress of toil, to look away to the land 
of rest is in itself refreshing. One fretted with cares 
and fears, and the many ups and downs of life, who can 
look away to the happy shores and the gathering 
throngs of the ransomed ones on the mountain-sides of 
the better country, can say, " One day, and this will all 
be over ; I am heir to a purchased possession ; a foretaste 
I already have, and on full enjoyment before long I shall 
enter." And this gives many a restful hour to the home- 
going sons and daughters, and many a cooling drop on 
the fevered brow which else they would never find. The 
happy look into the things spiritual and eternal. 

And now for proof of all this, and far, far more. 
What a splendid illustration we have in him whose pen 
first wrote the words of our text! Look at him just as 
he writes this wonderful chapter. What is his condi- 
tion ? Girded about with suffering, assailed in so many 
quarters, and pressed upon in so many points that to 
human heart the wonder is that he lives at all. His 
tabernacle is soon to be taken down, the earthly house 
soon to be dissolved, a prisoner, and very poor, and not 
one of earth's strong ones to help, yet very happy. He 



SERMON X. 131 

sees the gathering troubles, but only sees them ; he 
looks away, far, far beyond them. He seems to walk 
among them like a conqueror, who, returning from the 
battle scarred and worn, looks now at the preparation 
being made to give him a triumphal entrance into his 
native city. And what explains it? He answers, " for 
which cause." That is, because the great cause, the 
Master's cause, is advanced by these labors and suffer- 
ings ; " because of this we faint not." True, the outer 
man is perishing, but just as true the inner is gaining 
strength, is renewed day by day. " Our light afflic- 
tions," he says ! Stay, do we read aright? These afflic- 
tions light? Could afflictions be heavier? No mere 
man at that day, or any day, bore a heavier burden. 
Homeless, often hungry, scantily clad, and often friend- 
less, and without a spark of hope that while on earth 
the scene would ever change, and yet he calls it " light 
affliction," and " but for a moment." " A moment," and 
from the hour of his conversion, through the more than 
thirty years of Christian life, thus it had been ; and to 
the day of his martyrdom thus he knew it would be. 
And still he calls it light and for but a moment. And 
how or why? The Master's power; the transmuting 
element is nothing else than the " look ;" not " at the 
things seen and temporal," but the look beyond, — " at 
the things spiritual and eternal." He never said it did 
not seem long in itself. Paul, like other men, was 
human, but, measured by eternal duration, it was but 
for a moment. What the grave of Jesus Christ our 
Lord did for one it can do for all ; and for many and 
many a child of God it is this day doing. For us at 



132 SERMON X. 

this moment Jesus yearns to do the same. Let us take 
our stand by the cross. The Lord's redeeming work for 
us is done there ; the angle of vision there will take us 
past the tangible and the temporal to the eternal and 
the invisible, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of 
God. 



XI. 

" And be not conformed to this world : but be ye trans- 
formed by the renewing of your mind." — Romans xii. 2. 

These words were addressed to a comparatively little 
church in the midst of a degraded community, which, 
from Nero, on the throne, to the lowest orders of 
Roman society, was almost beyond comparison. But 
to the very centre of this citadel of Satan the power 
of Jesus Christ had been felt. The church here had 
been formed, as would be expected, against fearful op- 
position, and its members are reminded by the apostle 
that the only way by which an effective work can be 
done, in the midst of all that would seem insurmount- 
able, is by an uncompromising adherence to the princi- 
ples laid down by Him on whom alone they hoped for 
salvation. In the beginning of the chapter from which 
the text is taken a most impressive exhortation is 
addressed to all, and in the words of the text are three 
prominent points to note and remember, which will 
give us the apostle's meaning : First, the inward change ; 
second, the results of that change, — a life transformed ; 
third, the means by which that transformation is 
effected. 

First. Note where the beginning must be : in the renew- 
ing of your mind. He goes deep down. In the school of 

133 



134 SERMON XI. 

the Master he had been taught that fundamental lesson, 
that the tree must be good if the fruit be good. The 
mistake of multitudes nowadays is in beginning at the 
outside. Rules, restrictions, and prescriptions, though 
ever so many and ever so carefully framed, are little 
else than futile effort, unless first you get down to the 
hidden man of the heart. If the inner be dealt with 
first, the outer will be sure to come in due season. The 
reason that so many of the very best plans for the refor- 
mation of the world come under the stroke of condemna- 
tion following failure is that they only touch or treat the 
surface of the evil. They are as superficial as that of a 
physician who would expend all his care on an outward 
eruption, while his patient was dying from a poison 
within. Deeper than the surface must we go, as Paul, 
echoing the Master, in the text enjoins transformation 
by " the renewing of our minds." The text is indeed but 
the echo of Jesus Himself in that most profound discourse 
which at the beginning of His ministry He addressed to 
Nicodemus. It was evident that before this reported 
interview an intellectual impression by the great teacher 
had been made upon the Master in Israel. He was con- 
vinced that the divine mission of the Redeemer was 
attested by the works He wrought. This acknowledg- 
ment of the conviction prepared the way for the asser- 
tion of the fundamental truths of Christian discipleship, 
the first of which is declared in the opening of the great 
discourse : " Except a man be born again, he cannot see 
the kingdom of God." 

This very peculiar expression " born again" is a phrase 
that had its origin historically in the political state, and 



SERMON XI. 135 

was appropriated by Christ figuratively to the spiritual 
use in which we find it. Foreigners or Gentiles by 
the Jewish people were looked on as unclean ; therefore 
if a Gentile wanted to become a Jewish citizen, he was 
baptized with water, in connection with other appro- 
priate ceremonies, and so being cleansed, was admitted 
to all the privileges of a true son of Abraham. It was 
as if he had been born a second time, of the stock of 
Abraham, and becoming in this manner a native Jew, as 
related to the Jewish state, he was said, in form of law, 
to be born again. Our word " naturalization " signifies 
the same thing, — viz., that the subject, though a foreigner, 
is made by law to be a natural-born American, or, in 
the eye of the law, a native citizen. Finding this Jewish 
ceremony, and knowing that it was so familiarly known 
to his auditors, he employs it to represent the natural- 
ization of a soul in the kingdom of heaven. Seeing us 
in our fallen state under sin, as aliens or foreigners, and 
not citizens, unclean in a far deeper than any political 
sense, He says, in a manner most emphatic, " Verily, 
verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he 
cannot see the kingdom of God." In this language, so 
plain, He gives us to understand the truth associated 
with so much solemnity : that no man can be accepted 
before God, as entered into the kingdom of the glorified, 
who is not cleansed by a spiritual transformation, a 
renewing of the mind, and thus made native in the 
kingdom. He does not leave us to mistake His mean- 
ing, or to suppose that He can mean a ceremonial 
cleansing. He only takes the water as a symbol, and 
adds the Spirit as the real cleansing power. " Except a 



136 SERMON XI. 

man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter 
into the kingdom of God." And then, as if to prevent 
the possibility of misconception of His meaning, He 
declares, " that which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and 
that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." 

In the Saviour's day, as in every age, many have been 
found, and still are, who cannot believe or admit such a 
doctrine. It savors, they say, of severity ; of hardness. 
It does not correspond with what they think they see in 
examples of natural characters around them. How can 
it be said or imagined that so many moral, honorable, 
lovely, and even comparatively reverent persons need to 
be so radically, so thoroughly, changed as is the require- 
ment of the text, and of the Saviour Himself, before 
they can be saved ? To this it might be replied that the 
word of Christ settles the question. The necessity is 
pronounced by His own lips with, " Ye must be bom 
again" and that asseverated with, " Verily, verily, I say 
unto you." Nowhere from His lips is any sentence in 
all His word that modifies this requirement. If we but 
deal honestly with ourselves, we can find proof of the 
justice of the divine demand without going far to find it. 
Tell me, my friends, what one of us who has ever tried 
to fairly judge his own history or inner life but will say, 
" It is all true, all right." "Nature's sternest painter," 
as has been well said, " is always the best." Take the 
pen-picture drawn by the divine hand, and with an 
honest answer, seeing ourselves, we will pronounce an 
" Amen" to its every word. Conscience brings its own 
verdict : " Thou art the man." To which the soul 
answers, " I need regeneration ; I need transformation, 



SERMON XI. 137 

— renewing in the very spirit of the mind." But a few 
moments of honest, prayerful reflection are required to 
convince one that the very religion on which hang all 
our hopes for eternity is based on the fact of this neces- 
sity. Nowhere is it taught in God's word that true 
religion is a doctrine of development, or a system of 
self-culture, or any of the many things that ignorance, 
scepticism, and vanity so often discuss together, and 
with which they flatter each other by calling it. It is 
nothing, if it be not a power moving over fallen 
humanity, from above the level of that humanity, to 
regenerate and to save. It has been impressively said 
by one not long since entered upon his rest, " The whole 
fabric is absurd unless there was something to be done 
in man and for him that required a supernatural inter- 
vention." " Were it otherwise," says the same, " were 
Christianity a merely natural and earthly product, then 
it were only a fungus growing out of the world, and, 
with all its high pretensions, could have nothing more 
to do for the world than any other fungus for the heap 
on which it grows." 'The very name Jesus is a false pre- 
tence, unless He has something to do for the race which 
the race cannot do for itself; something regenerative; 
something new, creative, transformative; renewing of 
the soul. A work that, in a word, is fitly called " sal- 
vation." 

It is quite likely now that some one may ask, " Is 
God going to stand upon any such rigid terms with us ? 
Is this in keeping with the liberality, the generosity, the 
kindness of His nature ? Is it not more in harmony 
with His loving nature to suppose Him capable of doing 
10 



133 SERMON XI. 

better things by us ; we who are so much under the law 
of circumstances, we so weak, and He so mighty, so 
good, and so great ? In a word, may we not weigh 
these things on our own scales of justice and risk the 
consequences?" In answer to this : First, we are dealing 
with Him who knew all the truth, which from all 
eternity reposed in the bosom of the Father ; who came 
on our behalf to this fallen world to reveal that truth to 
us. Incarnate love, as He is, it is as impossible that He 
can deceive as that He can be deceived. He well knew 
the far-reaching import of His words when, the cross in 
full view, He said, " Marvel not that I say unto you, Ye 
must be born again." Then, be it remembered that all 
these arguments we are so prone to frame are all sup- 
posedly in our own interests, but are all based upon the 
plea of looseness, which is not after God's way. On 
the contrary, all we see and learn by His works, as well 
as by His ways and His word, proved that the law of 
utmost exactness is the all-pervading law of His uni- 
verse. His laws in control of the elements are so unde- 
viating that by a shower of rain the movements of a 
mighty army for but an hour are impeded, and so a 
dynasty is overthrown, an empire brought to the dust, 
and the history of the whole world changed. And then 
look at matter, of which not one atom is smuggled into 
place or out of place, as if it would do as well any- 
where. Is, then, eternal character in those whom His 
Son died to save a matter that God will treat more 
loosely than He does the fall of a sparrow or the mote 
in a sunbeam ? Think you that, when God undertook 
to save a world in rebellion, it was to be saved by a plan 



SERMON XI. 139 

of fixed wisdom and love combined, or by accommoda- 
tion to the views and the wishes of the myriads in 
rebellion ? The great desire of the infinitely loving 
Father is to bring all His rebellious children back to the 
happy and holy state from which they fell. Can it 
accord with that desire to gather a mass of good and 
bad, and call it heaven? We may just as rationally 
expect that to accommodate human wishes God would 
suspend any physical law, that gravitation could be so 
changed as to attract the rivers or the seas to the 
mountain-tops, as that His terms of salvation will 
gather to eternal life any who are not quickened into 
that life by the power of His Son. 

The plainest dictates of common sense, through the 
observation of every day, force the truth of the text 
upon any honest, inquiring mind. Do we not see many 
about us, — indeed, we meet them everywhere, — men and 
women, whom we are forced to pronounce unfit for the 
society of the only comparatively pure and the good 
here ? Will the article of death make them fit for the 
kingdom of heaven hereafter ? With it they have no sym- 
pathy now ; could they then ? Slaves of passion, cruel, 
tyrannical, unbelieving, abominable, it would be but an 
insult, even to human reason, to say that without a 
transformation, a new creation, these could dissolve into 
a perfectly blessed, a heavenly society? If these can- 
not, then must there be a division ; and if a division, 
where shall the dividing line fall ? What is on one side 
of that line cannot be on the other. So by almost com- 
mon consent, even here, the mind affirms what revela- 
tion declares : that the terms of salvation must be exact, 



14-0 SERMON XI. 

if there be any terms at all. It is only possible here to 
give the barest outline of the irrefragable proof by 
which the necessity of this great change is established. 
We know it from the divine determination, from our 
own consciousness, from our daily observation ; all 
declaring the necessity of a radical transformation, a 
renewing of our minds, a new creation. As to the real 
nature of the change much has been said and written 
which here we cannot notice. With some the period 
and the circumstances of their conversion are distinctly 
marked ; others can only look back over a gradual pro- 
cess, by which they were brought out of darkness into 
God's marvellous light. These from earliest infancy, 
trained under gospel tutelage, can remember no time in 
which in a greater or less degree the fear of God was 
not, with the love of God, a motive power within. 

This, however, is but a divergence from the main 
question. The true nature of the great change can be 
known only by the subject himself from the workings 
of his own heart. The heart, not the acts of the body, 
is the seat of all good or all evil. We are all conscious 
of this. We all know that when we act in any par- 
ticular manner of wrong-doing or neglect of God, there 
is something beside the mere acts, something back of 
the acts ; that is the reason why it is done. I may join 
in any of the almost countless ways in which this day 
of God is being desecrated ; and in the act itself, the act 
of the body, you can find nothing wrong. The acts I 
perform may be just the acts of any of the other days of 
the week. A man may inflict a blow on another, — the 
wrong-doing lies not in the action of his arm, any more 






SERMON XI. 141 

than would the virtue of rescuing a drowning man by 
that same arm lie in its act. The wrong lies farther 
back ; in some habit, some affection of the soul, some- 
thing whence the action comes. This something, call 
it what you may, is the wrong of all wrong, the sin of 
all sin ; this must be changed, and on this change salva- 
tion hinges. Practically speaking, every man's life is 
shaped by his love. If it be downward and earthly, his 
life will be as his reigning desire is. This is no senti- 
ment, no temporary casual emotion ; it is the man's 
settled affinity. It fixes his character, and is to that 
character what the magnetic power is to the needle. 
But this love must act in one of two ways : either down- 
ward or upward, for being the deepest affection of the 
heart, it cannot go out to objects infinitely separated 
from each other, and by their very nature hostile to each 
other. 

No wonder, then, that the nature of this transforma- 
tion is so well defined by the simple, old-fashioned term, 
" A change of heart." A change that is total. When 
the heart's affections are turned from the downward, at 
once they rise upward, drawn by a natural, but which 
then becomes a spiritual, affinity. Renewed in the 
spirit of his mind, or "born of God," he becomes like 
God, loving what He loves and hating what He hates ; 
his temper, his actions, and enjoyments will all be from 
God. As a being adopted into the family of God, the 
Eternal Father receives him. A returned and restored 
child, he is to share all the blessings of the Father's 
house. The prodigal did not come back to be a ser- 
vant, though it was all he dared to ask. By the Father's 



142 SERMON XL 

decree he came to be a son, and to him all the high 
privileges of sonship. How shall we become possessed 
of these great privileges ? Or how shall this change be 
effected ? This is the question of questions, and may- 
be answered in the words of Pilate, " Behold the man" 
Behold Him in the judgment hall. Behold Him on 
Calvary. Yes ; faith's view of Him there answers it all. 
The wondrous plan is all told by the attitude which 
divine love assumes to us at the cross. Satan will to 
the last interfere with artificial questions, to keep us 
back from the simple acceptance of God's love to us as 
expressed on Calvary. But, blessed be God, that pic- 
ture of Jesus he can never blur, much less obliterate. 
One of the scenes with which the Bible closes, is that 
of the Saviour standing before the door of every sin- 
ning man. He is knocking for admission, while on His 
lips is a promise that if any man will open the door (the 
simple act of faith), He will " come in and sup with 
him." This is but the offer of the glory to be revealed 
in us, as He is here presented to us. Thus received, you 
are born of, and so " transformed by, the renewing of 
your mind." It is the entering in of new life; it is 
eternal life begun. May God grant that, with a full, 
deep experimental knowledge, you each may know it. 






XII. 

" For the Lord scetli not as man scetli ; for man looketh 
011 the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the 
heartr — I. Samuel xvi. 7. 

In compliance with a promise recently made to the 
Sabbath-school, we take for our subject to-day Saul and 
the lessons of his life, the foundation for which we have 
in the words of our text. 

The divine record as given in the first and second 
books of Samuel covers one of the most important 
periods of the history of the church. It is a period the 
events of which almost all revolve around the three 
great characters, Samuel, Saul, and David, the study ol 
which would richly reward even ordinary effort. It is 
truly sad that so few of the people really know the 
Bible. If, by some means, the Lord would give but a 
flash for but a few moments of what it contains, nothing 
would surprise us so much as our ignorance concern- 
ing it. 

With great eagerness do multitudes await and devour 
the periodical literature of the day, weekly, monthly, 
and quarterly, and even glean the trashy stuff of our 
dailies, who have never read the romantic, the graphic, 
the intensely fascinating story of Saul. A story which, 
together with a wealth of moral lessons, carries all the 

143 



144 SERMON XII. 

interest of a conspicuous, and often brilliant and tragic, 
career. 

Never in this world's history has the Bible had such a 
circulation as in our day. By the millions its copies 
are issued, and by the million most of its books, con- 
taining the very choicest literature the world has ever 
possessed, are passed over almost unnoticed ; among 
them the stirring story of Saul, the interest of which 
grows upon you the more closely you study it, from 
first to last deepening with all the interest of the most 
perfect tragedy. 

His life, like every man's life, the record proves is 
what a mighty man has wisely styled " A plan of God." 
It presents a divine side and a human side, each in the 
clearest light and most distinctly marked. Little did 
the millions of Israel think, when they, by asking for a 
king, sent sorrow to the heart of the venerable Samuel, 
who had led them so long and so well, that the choice 
of the King of kings was already fixed, and fixed upon 
the man on whom their own suffrages would fall. By 
lot they chose the tribe of Benjamin, next the family of 
Matri, and then the lot fell upon the branch of Kish, 
and Saul, the son of that house. Such had God deter- 
mined. 

Now turn to that scene in the tenth chapter of the 
first book, which the divine pencil has so vividly drawn 
that it stands out before us in all the freshness of one of 
nature's most fascinating scenes, because true to the life. 
The central figure in the foreground is that of the son 
of a farmer, unknown beyond even his small tribe. He 
has gone in quest of a part of his father's herd, which 



SERMON XII. 145 

have strayed afar. He consults with his servant on 
the complications of their case. In that consultation a 
flash of light is thrown so as to reveal the tenderness of 
heart of the strong, brave, innocent Benjamite. From 
the maid-servants, who are passing to their daily tasks, 
information is obtained of the presence of the prophet, 
who has happened to be in that locality at that time. 
They meet, and after that meeting, he passes the first of 
the many sleepless nights that belong to the uneasy rest 
of the head that wears a crown. 

When the morning comes it brings with it the 
announcement of the office to which he has been 
chosen of the Lord. It also brings an evident sense of 
the fearful responsibility resting upon the man who 
holds such a place. The unaffected modesty, the sense 
of unfitness for a trust so high, which, in truth, every- 
where and always form those traits so valuable and so 
winning, at once draw him to our hearts. Never was 
there a morning of life more cloudless, or one that gave 
better promise of a glorious day and a brilliant ending. 
By nature endowed with great gifts both of body and of 
mind, he stood before the people " every inch a king." 
His call to the office was special. He had been received 
by the acclamations of the people ; peculiar qualifica- 
tions for its exercise were given to him to fit him fully 
for the lofty duties of kingship ; " another heart" was 
given to him, that he might feel the consciousness of a 
power such as he had never even dreamed of. 

Up to the time of his interview with Samuel his aims 
were bounded only by the horizon of the son of a 
respectable, well-to-do husbandman. God took him to 



146 SERMON XII. 

higher cares than those of corn and cattle, and to 
another place, and so did with him as He always has 
done and still does. He fitted him for the place he was 
to fill ; He gave him another heart. A new fire had 
been kindled in his breast ; his outlook, all was changed ; 
the objects of his former delight and early occupations 
hardly occupy a thought. He thinks only of the over- 
throw of Israel's enemies; of adding to the glory of her 
arms, and so by his generalship, as well as statesmanship, 
adding to the glory of his crown. 

To fit an instrument for the work he is to do God 
always bestows the needed qualifications. A wide dis- 
tinction though exists here between "another heart" 
and a " new heart." Like many another from that land 
and that day, even to this land and our day, Saul had a 
wealth of gifts, but, in contrast with all his gifts, what 
poverty in graces ! The gifts of kingship all could see ; 
the graces of holy living were apparent to none. All 
his great powers were constantly bent to be mighty in 
battle and skilful in diplomacy, but not one particle of 
evidence is there that he tried to keep a conscience void 
of offence to God or toward men. 

For many a day he was all that the people wanted, 
for man looketh on the outward appearance, but all wrong 
in the sight of that God who looketh upon the heart. 
One of the proofs of a new heart is that its possessor is 
ever searching for wisdom to see the right, which is but 
another name for power to do the right. In the entire 
career of Saul there is not one proof, however, that he 
sought this divine gift. Had this been the motive power, 
however checkered his life, success in the long run had 



SERMON XII. 147 

been sure. Of this principle no clearer proof could be 
given than that in the two prominent characters of this 
book, — Samuel on the one hand, Saul on the other. 

Through all the stormy scenes of the long career of 
the prophet, obedience to the law of the Lord was his 
governing thought; and hence the end was not only 
peace, but when, after a long and stormy day, his sun 
went down in glory behind the hills of Ramah, with a 
long and bitter lamentation all Israel mourned the loss 
of one of the wisest and the best that the people of the 
Jews have given to the world. 

But how was it with the king who in days of a bright 
happy youth he had anointed, and who with so much 
enthusiasm had he seen enter upon his office ? See him 
at midnight, after a life filled with the brightest oppor- 
tunities, as he stealthily creeps across the mountain to 
the den of a wizard, old and wretched ; his country all 
in confusion, he himself eaten up with jealousy of his 
rival, as by a cancer, and his conscience racked with re- 
morseful memories ; his army camped on a bleak hill- 
side, awaiting the defeat of the morrow. His life, as one 
has beautifully said, began like one of the freshest of the 
days of spring and ended like a December day of the 
dying year. And was there not a cause ? Let his his- 
tory answer, for that reveals it. The secret of it all was 
in this : God's law was not his law. The secret of a 
successful life, notwithstanding all his powers, he did 
not know, and that is : to live as being constantly under 
the eye of Him who looketh upon the heart. 

His disobedience was the distinctly marked character- 
istic of his life ; hence there came a day in which, as it 



143 SERMON XII. 

is written in the fourteenth verse of this chapter, " The 
Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit 
from the Lord troubled him." The truth contained 
here is one which, with all its most solemn import, 
bears down upon us all. It tells us that every man, 
whether in high station or low, is living under the unal- 
terable law of the Lord. The same thing enacted there, 
under the same law, is being enacted everywhere. What 
is portrayed here you can see yourselves on almost every 
hand. Lives that in boyhood and early manhood are 
bright, beautiful, and enthusiastic, ending in disappointed, 
embittered, wretched Sauls. It seems as if God's Spirit 
never gives a man up until by that man His Spirit is 
forced away. But the fact remains that the man is not 
as if cast out into a region over which God has no con- 
trol ; as if he has nothing to do any longer with God or 
God with him. It was because of his relationship to 
the Lord that his great opportunities, great gifts, and 
great blessings came ; these all despised and abused, 
out of that same relationship must come the conse- 
quences of that rejection and abuse. His heart was not 
right with God, so he did not want the controlling 
influences of the loving Father's heart around him. 
But from that Father's power he could not get quit, so 
it was the inevitable of the divine law that came : " The 
Spirit of the Lord was taken from Saul, and an evil 
spirit from the Lord troubled him." 

These may seem like hard truths, but their hardness 
will all disappear when you look into the circumstances 
that illustrate them in this remarkable life. There are two 
instances recorded which indicate the controlling spirit 



SERMON XII. 149 

under which he ever moved. One was his assuming 
the offices that belonged only to the priesthood. His 
army seemed to be in a great strait. The Philistines 
were pressing sorely on all sides. Before his own host 
could move the divine presence must be invoked and a 
sacrifice in behalf of the nation must be offered. It was 
only the second year of his reign, and the first public 
test. He was impatient. Samuel had not arrived upon 
the scene, and to him alone belonged the duty of offer- 
ing the sacrifice. Saul was neither priest nor prophet, 
but because he was king he usurped the office of both. 
In the eyes of all the people, it was a sacrilegious act ; 
one of the most flagrant of sins. It was disobedience, 
with the spirit of defiance. From that day he was on 
the decline to the tragic end. The sacrifice had hardly 
been offered when Samuel appeared, and the displeasure 
of the Lord was made known. 

A semblance of repentance appeared, and with it the 
forbearance of the Lord. It was only a semblance. 
The sin was unfelt, and so unmourned. He who 
looketh on the heart saw it, and in it saw the very 
essence of rebellion. Not long until there came another 
trial, when again he was weighed and found wanting. 

The cup of the iniquity of the Amalekites, among 
the most desperate of Israel's enemies, was filled to 
overflowing. Saul had received the command of the 
Lord through Samuel to attack and utterly destroy 
them, king and people, and to take no spoil. He obeyed 
only in part, but in the sight of the Lord it was disobe- 
dience in all, for the spirit of obedience was not in him. 
To advance the glory of his own triumph he brought 



150 SERMON XII. 

their king a captive, and saved the best of their sheep 
and oxen, ostensibly for a splendid sacrifice to the Lord. 
Let no one imagine that these two acts were insulated 
from the rest of his life. The servant of the Lord tells 
him that God had rejected him from being king. The 
individual acts in the sentence are never even mentioned. 
It was " Because thou hast not obeyed the voice of the 
Lord." From the time that he begins to disobey the 
Lord, the Lord begins to work against him ; and so 
from scene to scene he passes, until the prophet of the 
Lord, who was sent to tell him of his great mission and 
to anoint him king, is sent again to tell him of his depo- 
sition, that crown and throne are to be transferred, and 
that his sin is the cause. 

The vindication of Saul's rejection is seen as you look 
not only all through God's word, but through all God's 
works. Even in the natural world, obedience is the con- 
dition of success, and its opposite the sure result of 
defeat. The time was, and perhaps is still, in which, for 
instance, men looked on nature's most terrible forces as 
adversaries — nothing else. Now, the lightning's laws 
obeyed, you can use it as your servant, to bear your 
tenderest messages of love from nation to nation, and 
even under the sea from continent to continent. There 
is no department in creation in which the law of obedi- 
ence is not supreme. Be it water or fire, violate their 
laws, and you pay the penalty ; obey them, and they 
become your servants. They warm your houses, carry 
your burdens, runs your mills, and cook your food. 
And is not the same law maintained, the same principle 
paramount, in all the walks of civil life ? Here in this 



SERMON XII. 151 

house and in our own we abide in peace, protected by 
these very same laws which brought their forces (civil 
and social) down upon many a one in the criminal's cell, 
the dominant principle of whose lives, like that of Saul, 
is obedience when convenient, disobedience when not 
convenient ; which is in the sight of both God and man 
— that God who looketh upon the heart — the very 
essence of rebellion. 

The reports of every day are full in illustration of our 
point. In a far-off city is the fresh-made grave of a 
man of brilliant endowment and conspicuous position ; 
whose influence once commanded the multitude, but 
whose powers were prostituted to self, and himself 
obedient to no law, social or civil, of God or of man, 
that he dare transgress. When he came to die as the 
fool dieth, when his hoary head and bloody hands went 
down to a grave of shame, though many lamented the 
mode, none lamented the death, and few condemned the 
slayer. In every walk of life, obedience ends in honor ; 
disobedience, in shame and contempt. It seems as if 
nothing stands in the way of obedience ; but against the 
disobedient, as against Ishmael, every man's hand is 
turned. 

How strongly was the case stated by Samuel in his 
rebuke of the king ! Saul told him he had saved the 
sheep and the oxen, which God had bidden him destroy, 
to sacrifice to the Lord. And Samuel said, " Hath the 
Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as 
in obeying the voice of the Lord ? Behold, to obey is 
better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of 
rams." 



152 SERMON XII. 

To very many nowadays these great strong words, so 
full of life, are just as applicable as in those ancient days. 
There is a great deal of the mind of Saul in all of us. The 
ways prescribed by the Lord are not, we think, as good 
as our ways, and the evil one suggests an improvement. 
When at times the Lord tells us to go to Him empty- 
handed, that He may fill our arms and hands with the 
gifts of His love, our peace and safety consist in doing 
just as we are told; yet how loath are we to do it, in 
spite of what we know ! He does not need the spoil 
we have taken from His enemy, the live stock, or any 
other kind of stock ; but He does need, and longs to 
get the loving, willing obedience of His sons and His 
daughters. 

You notice that among the last great words Samuel 
said to Saul were these : " For rebellion is as the sin of 
witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry." 
Against witchcraft and idolatry Saul was fiercely set. 
His edicts against the witches, the fortune-tellers, were 
aimed at their very extermination from his kingdom. 
How deeply rooted a man's professions are when his 
heart is not with God is shown by his last night, when, 
in bitter agony and attempted disguise, he sought the 
place of the Witch of Endor, that she might tell him 
the fortunes of the morrow. There are but too many 
in every age and country who, like him, make distinc- 
tions in evil, which the Lord will never recognize. Our 
measures of comparative sins are very different from 
God's measures. As a rule, sins against our fellow-men 
are much more reprehensible than sins against God ; 
the one a serious, the other a minor, matter. A man 



SERMON XII. 153 

who is known to have robbed his fellow-man, unless he 
has committed robbery by the wholesale or has done it 
in company with a great gang, is looked at with ab- 
horrence ; but a man may be both prayerless, Sabbath- 
less, and profane ; he may be impure in word and be 
known to be impure in act, and yet not lose his so- 
cial standing. This is our way of looking at matters. 
The outward appearance will satisfy us. God's way is 
quite another way ; He looketh upon the heart. He may 
not put all sins on the same level, or rank them accord- 
ing to the same degree of turpitude, but He puts them 
together, and makes known to us in the plainest 
possible terms and in very many ways that the man 
who wilfully disobeys in one thing, under similar circum- 
stances, will disobey in another thing. Just as plainly 
too does the life of Saul prove that there can be no 
acceptable service in God's sight without a heartfelt con- 
trition for the sins that every man, even the best, com- 
mits. In no instance in all of Saul's life can we discern 
any evidence of genuine repentance. What, without 
that, in God's sight were all his sacrifices ? Without 
that, one burnt offering of a thousand rams and 'ten 
thousand rivers of oil were nothing ; yea, only a smoke, 
a stench in Jehovah's nostrils. 

True, indeed, he admitted to Samuel he had made a 
mistake, but no penitent tears were there, no sorrow for 
sin. His only concern was lest Samuel should forsake 
him; hence his only plea with the prophet was, " Honor 
me" (not before God) but " before the people." 

The gates of repentance stood open before him even to 
that fatal day that he fell on Gilboa. Rightly accepted, 



154 SERMON XII. 

Samuel's sentence, when at their last interview he was told 
of God's displeasure, could have drawn him in true peni- 
tence to a forgiving God. The trouble was, and with 
too many still is, that he never rightly understood what 
sin is. He called it a mistake. In God's sight, sin is 
something more ; He calls it a crime. He never knew 
the real import of the sacrifice he offered. It speaks 
at once of sin and of pardon. It proclaims that, which 
above all it behooves us to-day to know, a sacrifice for 
us has been offered ; that by faith in that sacrifice our 
sins are pardoned, and our iniquities covered. God the 
Father has provided that sacrifice. In infinite love, He 
points us to it, bids us behold His Son dying for us, and 
bids us believe on Him, and that for life everlasting and 
all it involves. 

To refuse obedience to our Father in this is in His 
sight an offence as flagrant as any for which any man 
could be dealt with by any earthly government. " Obe- 
dience and not sacrifice" is the word of the Lord, the 
righteous requirement of Him who " Seeth not as man 
seeth, but who looketh on the heart." 



XIII. 

"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget 
her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue 
cleave to the roof of my mouthy — Psalm exxxvii. 5, 6. 

We would do injustice to the best instincts of our 
nature did we deny that to some, and more than a few, 
this is a day fraught with mingled emotions.* There is 
a class with whom we have never been in sympathy, — a 
class who decry as superstitious that devout instinct 
which reveres the house dedicated to the worship of the 
Lord. " What is the house of God more than any other 
mass of bricks and mortar?" has ever fallen upon the 
ears of God's children as a cold-blooded exclamation. 
A great deal we hear of the poetry of worshipping God 
under Nature's broad dome, in her fields, her mountains, 
her valleys, on her forests. Many who have no rever- 
ence for sanctuary or Sabbath can express much weak 
sentiment in praise of "God's first temples;" but what 
devout worshipper of Him who dwelleth not in temples 
made with hands is there that rejoices not in the thought 
of His omnipresence? One of the sweetest of our joys 
is based on the fact that on His arm we can lean always, 



* The last sermon preached in the Presbyterian Church in Kirkwood, 
that was removed in the summer of 1888. 

155 



156 SERMON XIII. 

and that His ear is ever open to us. His eyes are every- 
where beholding and His eyelids trying the children of 
men. But withal, the reasons we have for regarding 
the place where we meet week by week for the worship 
of our God with profoundest reverence are in themselves 
peculiar and profound. Our authority for it we find in 
His own blessed word, which is echoed by the instincts 
of our own hearts. Look a few moments at the develop- 
ment of this idea as the word reveals it, and behold with 
what sanctity it is clothed. 

God's first temple was as imposing in Abraham's day 
as it is to-day. The hills and valleys and groves of 
Mam re presented a spectacle as grand and as awe- 
inspiring as ever they have done since. Yet did that 
satisfy the patriarch when he sought above all to honor 
God? Three days' journey did he take, until he came 
to the spot ever after held most sacred, where he and the 
lad went to worship, and where God met with him and 
spoke to him, as He had promised. The eventide was 
as fascinating to Isaac as it is sweet to us all, but Beer- 
sheba was to him of all places the dearest ; for there the 
Lord appeared to him, there He blessed him, and there 
he built an altar, where he worshipped. Have you never 
thought of the precious meaning and history of that word 
" Bethel " ? On that eventful night on which, with a sad 
heart and a troubled conscience, Jacob laid his head on 
its hard pillow, the spangled firmament and the shining 
host silently proclaimed their Creator as gorgeously as 
now ; but in that awful hour the thought of a greater 
than Nature's temple filled his soul. He awakened, and 
said, " Surely the Lord is in this place ; and I knew it not. 



SERMON XIII. 157 

This is none other but the house of God, and this is the 
gate of heaven." By its old name, Luz, it is no more 
known. " He called the name of that place Bethel." 
Another place he calls Peniel ; for there, after wrestling 
with a stranger through the night till the daybreak, he 
said, " I have seen God face to face." Throughout the 
history of the children of Israel during the life of Moses, 
from the commencement of his leadership until God 
calls him from Pisgah, the idea of the inviolable sanctity 
of the place of worship, the place where God records 
His name, and makes known His presence, is continually 
kept before us. Awed into solemnity at the sight of the 
bush burning, yet unconsumed, he hears the voice : 
" Put off thy shoes from off thy feet ; for the place 
whereon thou standest is holy ground." From the 
hour of the exodus until the entrance into Canaan, the 
symbol of the special divine presence never leaves them ; 
the cloudy pillar by day, the column of fire at night. 
They never dared to move but when it moved, not ever 
to stop until it stopped. 

More clearly defined and more distinctly pronounced 
still was the divine teaching on this point. When God 
took His honored servant up into the mount, and there 
gave the pattern of the tabernacle, and with it the sym- 
bol of His presence and the perpetuity of His blessing, 
the people were from thence taught that God took an 
especial delight in the tabernacles of His grace ; there 
would the shekinah be, there the mercy-seat, there the ark 
of the covenant, and there should His honour dwell. In 
every home of His dear children is His presence ; not a 
member of one of the families of His people ever wanders 



158 SERMON XIII. 

from beneath His eye ; but He declares that He taketh 
more pleasure in the gates of Zion than in all the dwell- 
ings of Jacob. How He proved it in the days of Solo- 
mon, the golden age of Israel! Then the far-famed 
splendor of the temple rose. The wisdom of the wisest 
and the skill of the most accomplished on earth were 
taxed to make it what it was, the wonder of the world. 
Ophir sent her gold, Lebanon her cedars, and Tyre 
employed her navy. " The house that is to be builded 
for the Lord," said Solomon, " must be exceeding mag- 
nifical, of fame and of glory throughout all countries." 
So hallowed was it to be that neither the sound of axe 
nor hammer should be heard upon it; like the silent 
growth of the forest, it should rise. When finished, 
Jehovah says, " I have hallowed this house, which thou 
hast built, to put my name there for ever." 

In this God lovingly meets one of the deepest crav- 
ings of the human heart. A desolate, orphaned feeling 
it is that hopelessly cries, " Oh, that I knew where I might 
find Him !" Instinctively we clothe our conceptions of 
God with human form, we hear His voice, with awe we 
approach the place where He is. With these intuitions 
God made us. He will neither contradict Himself nor 
belie His own work. Consequently He delights in us as 
we love what He calls the holy place, the holy hill, the 
gate of heaven, the place where His honor dwelleth. 
How deeply written in the hearts of God's people in 
every age is their love for His holy altars, the entire 
psalm from which our text is taken proves. Israel was 
captive in Babylon; under the willows which skirted 
the Tigris and Euphrates they bemoaned their captivity, 



SERMON XIII. 159 

and very bitterly do they mourn. " By the rivers of 
Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we re- 
membered Zion. . . . They that wasted us required of 
us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. 
How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land ? 
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget 
her cunning." No note of rebellion against the justice 
of their fate can be detected in their song. They bow 
in bitter sorrow before His righteous decrees, but dearly 
love Him still. Babylon's stately palaces surround them, 
but no temple nor any altar to their God, — the living 
God. In accord with what would be the popular counsel 
of to-day, Babylon suggested that they divest themselves 
of their cherished associations ; that they become practi- 
cal ; the memories of Jerusalem, however precious, can 
only act as an incubus. Now that they are in Babylon, 
they will find it much more sensible to do as Babylon 
does ; and if sing their Lord's songs they must, let them 
sing them to suit the spirit of their altered circumstances. 
" They that wasted us required of us mirth." " Cheer 
up," as our day would have it; "cheer up, and sing to 
us your songs of Zion." At the suggestion their fetters 
galled more sorely than ever. The very air was heavy, 
the place was strange, their harps could yield no music, 
their touch had lost its sweetness, in their hearts there 
was no song, — for Babylon. But even in their grief 
there was a song to their Lord, and the pathos of that 
song, sung even amid tears, has touched many a heart. 
It has been truly said that the Jew was sublime in his 
sacred oaths, morally grand in his covenants. 

Let none call this bigotry or prejudice, piety run into 



160 SERMON XIII. 

fanaticism. There was a constancy there which even 
Babylon must have felt. It was a new thing to that 
powerful heathen people to look on a band of slaves 
who could say, " We are your captives ; we bow because 
your arms are stronger than ours ; we wear your chains 
because we cannot break them ; but make us mock the 
memories of our temple ? There your power ends ; crush 
and break us you may, but Zion's hold on us you cannot 
even touch." That is the power of principle embedded 
in the heart, and begotten in the temples of the Lord. 
The world is sorely in need of just such men. There is 
any amount now of what one of England's sons calls 
" India-rubber humanity ;" minds are elastic, consciences 
are elastic, principle is accommodated to circumstances, 
men do in Babylon what Babylon does and obey what 
she commands. A firm, unflinching, practical Chris- 
tianity is the need, and the only hope, of our times. 
We do not want bigotry, we do not want exclusiveness, 
the self-assertion of sects; but the faith, spoken in love, 
professed from the heart, and before the world consist- 
ently acted, is, above all things, what we need, and 
should earnestly pray for. 

And here we call you to witness that from this pulpit 
it has been the aim of all messages. Convictions of the 
divine authority of that system of truth to which your 
pastor's ordination vows were given, through all the 
years of this pastorate, have grown with his growth, and 
strengthened with his strength." I love it, and will ever 
love to preach it, not because it is Presbyterian, but 
because of the power which, through the Spirit of God, 
it exercises over the lives, the hearts, the hopes, and the 



SERMON XIII. 161 

consciences of men. We all love it, because, with the 
catholicity of the spirit of the Gospel of Jesus, it redeems 
us from selfishness, narrowness, and exclusiveness. We 
believe that the roots of a man's religion (if any root at 
all there be) must lie very near the surface who is just as 
happy under one church roof as another ; such an one is 
likely to be of little worth to any church. We are all 
apt to like the man who loves his own home better than 
any other home, his own country better than any other 
country, and his own church better than any other church. 
Such an one, if imbued with the true Spirit of the Mas- 
ter, has the warmest love and charity toward all others 
of God's dear children ; his friendship is the most reliable, 
his patriotism the warmest, and his citizenship the high- 
est. The hunger for home when away, the love of home, 
social, civil, and ecclesiastical, is not an instinct merely, 
but a power divinely implanted in the human heart, 
which, educated in the sanctuary of the Lord, becomes 
a ruling and a most reliable force in our religious and 
our social life. 

This it is which, in the second place, brings us to note 
that works done on the house of the Lord, for the glory of 
the Lord, are in His sight regarded as acts of eminent 
piety. The chapter we read informs us that Joash, king 
of Judah, had a long reign ; from the character of the 
man, as recorded in this chapter, it could hardly have 
failed to be an eventful reign. Yet little else does the 
inspired pen relate than the repairing of the house of 
the Lord. It had gone into neglect, and its altars had 
been dishonored by his predecessors, the sons of the 
wicked Atholiah. He publishes the almost forgotten 



1 62 SERMON XIII. 

statutes of Moses for the tabernacle of witness, and com- 
mands their observance. It created a moral revolution 
in the kingdom. The spirit, as well as the letter, of 
Moses' law was carried out ; the gifts in their voluntary- 
offering, as well in their abundance, were like the offer- 
ings for the tabernacle, and for the building of the 
temple. 

But here we must not overlook the fact of chief 
importance to us all this day, — that the work itself was 
nothing, but the motive behind the work in God's sight 
was everything. This runs all through the divine recog- 
nition of David's desire to build Him a house, and of 
Solomon's plan in its building, as well as through all the 
chapters of Nehemiah that record the building of the 
second temple. It becomes us all to lay this well to 
heart to-day. We have reached a critical period in our 
church's history. If we make the temporal subordinate 
to the spiritual, then we know that the blessing of the 
Lord our God will be upon us. Otherwise, all our 
movements will be fraught with the darkest conse- 
quences. That churches can as easily be secularized as 
individuals is known to every ordinary observer in 
Christian circles. When that comes, then may Ichabod 
be written upon them. It would be untrue to you to- 
day, as well as to my own conscience, were the truth 
held back, which with sorrow I feel and express, that I 
have the gravest apprehensions on this point. Were it 
in place here, the grounds of these apprehensions could 
be easily given. Suffice it to say that the state of 
religion in this church is not what it ought to be. Per- 
sonally, as pastor, I have no complaint against you. 



SERMON XIII. 163 

Would that I were so sure that against you and me 
God had no complaint to-day ! I beseech you, friends, 
to note : that if this crisis be passed with His blessing 
upon us, it will be because we will have lived nearer to 
Him than we are now, or have been living. It will be 
because there will exist a spirit of mutual conciliation 
and mutual forbearance. It will be because our new 
house of worship is viewed by us only in line of vision 
with the Father's house ; it will be, in a word, because we 
believe the Master's word : " The life is more than meat, 
and the body than raiment." If this be the spirit with 
us, then, like Nehemiah, shall the God of our fathers 
bless because we have been minded to rebuild the house 
of the Lord. And then the glory of this latter house 
shall be greater than of the former. 

Note now the associations which make the house of 
God so dear, and a help so great in the formation of 
Christian character. As creatures of association God 
created us, and in His wise ordering, by it we are more 
profoundly influenced than we even imagine, the impress 
of the past being felt oftentimes even as the scenes of 
to-day. Who does not, in some sense, at least, Qnter 
into the spirit of those familiar lines ? — 



Oft in the stilly night, 

Ere slumber's chain hath bound me, 
Sad memory brings the light 

Of other days around me. 
The smiles, the tears of boyhood's years, 

The words of love then spoken, 
The eyes that shone, now dimmed and gone, 

The cheerful hearts now broken." 



l6 4 SERMON XIII. 

There is in these lines a touch to which a chord in the 
heart would vibrate at any time. It is especially so 
to-day ; it could not be otherwise. Our attachments to 
the place where God has met with us, where He has 
blessed us, where He often has made glad the hearts of 
the living and of many that are no more, are very strong ; 
and though we leave it for a handsomer and a better 
house of worship, we cannot repress a feeling of sadness 
as we go. A pathos, it seems, is in the very air, so 
many memories crowd upon us. The history given last 
November we need not now repeat ; neither need we go 
back to the year 1856, when the erection of this house 
was begun,— the pioneer church in our community,— nor 
to 1858, when it was dedicated; the memories of now 
over twenty-one years is enough for me. As here I 
stand, the heralds who from this desk, with loving hearts 
and fervid lips, held up the cross, and by the Saviour 
have been called up higher, pass in solemn and silent 
review. While memory looks up and down these aisles, 
and on either hand sees faces we loved to see, and now 
love to think of; faces that to-day are looking upon His 
face, and have His name written upon their foreheads, 
very sacred are the associations of this place. And, 
blessed be our God, the memories are not all saddening. 
Here some of you, with me, have joyed in a Saviour's 
unutterable joy as your loved ones have been given as 
seals to this ministry here. Some of you, with hearts 
bowed in sorrow, have met Him here, and here you 
have found Him as good as His word, "I will speak 
comfortably unto them." To some must come the 
sacred memory of the sacramental emblems as poured 



SERMON XIII. 165 

upon the brows of your infant offspring-, as you on 
their behalf entered into covenant engagement with 
Him. And some surely have solemn recollections of 
the time when these walls witnessed your own public 
profession of the Lord as your God, and of His re- 
ceiving you as His dear children. Ah ! friends, there 
are holy forces in such remembrances. They are like 
golden vials full of odors. The very walls seem elo- 
quently repeating the proclamation, " God said He 
would here record His name," and here He did record 
it. And now to thee, homely old church, can we re- 
frain from Israel's apostrophe ? — " If I forget thee, let 
my right hand forget its cunning. If I do not remember 
thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth." 

Were it in our power to call back those who in the 
past twenty-one years, as regular or occasional wor- 
shippers, have worshipped here, and have gone to the 
silent congregation, they would well-nigh, if not entirely, 
equal the congregation of the living. Turn a moment 
from the past to the future; look onward twenty-one years, 
and how changed will all be here ! How many of us 
will long ere that have seen His face, either with His 
glorious welcome or His fearful frown ? Then let these 
walls echo one more appeal, — the appeal of a loving 
Father, " Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why 
will ye die, O house of Israel ?" " As I live, saith the 
Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the 
wicked ; but that the wicked turn from his way and live." 
" Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon 
him while he is near : let the wicked forsake his way, 
and the unriehteous man his thoughts : an d let him 



166 SERMON XIII. 

return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon 
him ; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." 
Oh ! dear friends, remember God has said His word 
shall not return unto Him void; it shall accomplish what 
He please, either of life unto life, or of death unto death. 
That His word has from this pulpit often been feebly set 
forth I admit, but too imperfectly I confess, but I take 
you to record, unfaithfully, never. These walls and 
timbers are witnesses to the truth here uttered. The 
Lord grant that the words He spoke of old against an 
oft-warned people may not fall upon any here. May the 
stone not " Cry out of the wall against them," nor "the 
beam out of the timber answer it." 

Oh, that with a new consecration, we could give our- 
selves to the Master's work this day ! That when the 
rendering of our account shall come, it shall be with joy, 
and not with grief. Let us resolve that we shall live less 
than ever to ourselves ; more than ever to Him who died 
for us and rose again. As the blessed Gospel has been 
handed to us, and as we for long years have enjoyed it, 
so let us hold it up ; so let us transmit it to those to 
come. Then by us shall our Lord be glorified, our own 
souls gladdened, and generations to come shall rise up and 
call us blessed when we shall have been gathered to our 
Father's home, where congregations never break up and 
Sabbaths have no end. 



XIV. 

" And when he was conic into Jerusalem, all the city 
was moved, saying, Who is this ?" — Matthew xxi. 10. 

By various causes can great cities be moved. An 
empty pageant, the interest in which dies with the 
moment of its passing, or the death of one of the people's 
best benefactors, can stir a great city from centre to cir- 
cumference. Some men can raise an excitement who can- 
not control it, and others rouse a city and a people into 
a fervor of universal expectation which they disappoint. 
But here is one who moves the great city, Judea's capi- 
tal, as until then it never had been moved. And with 
Him is power to satisfy every emotion He excited and 
to meet every expectation He raised. 

It was a bright morning in the early spring-time. It 
too was early in the week which, above all the weeks of 
the year, came loaded with special interest to the Jews. 
But to all the Judean region outside Jerusalem, then 
centred in this passover, a greater even than the ordi- 
nary interest of passover week. The fame of the won- 
derful words and works of Jesus had gone over the 
entire land, while the universal desire to see and hear 
Him had been intensified by the report of the recent 
resurrection of Lazarus from the grave. You can easily 
imagine how the strangers would gather in groups 

167 



1 68 SERMON XIV. 

around every one who claimed to have been an eye- 
witness, or who intimately knew the family of Bethany. 
Having sent two of His disciples to a certain spot, to 
bring a colt they would find fastened there, the news 
rapidly spread that He that day was coming to the city. 
They knew that He had done many mighty works, and 
were drawn to Him before they saw Him, because His 
works were all of tenderness and of kindness. They 
were works of more than human power, but they all 
were in loving power. All confidently believed that the 
predicted time of the Messiah who was to restore the 
kingdom to Israel had come. All, save those of the 
Jews in the city who were so embittered against 
Jesus as to be plotting His death, were fondly hoping 
that this was He. As if on the wings of the wind, the 
news must have been borne that, by some sort of public 
entrance, He would come to the city that day. A great 
multitude assembled, and on the great highway which 
led from Bethany to Jerusalem met Jesus at the head of 
another great company. The enthusiasm, intense in its 
fervor, rapidly spread. Never with more exultant spirits 
did the Jews on any of their joyous feasts sing their Hillel 
than on that day, when the winds bore their praises 
to " Him that cometh in the name of the Lord," and 
" Hosanna in the highest." To the rulers of the people, 
their hearts steeled against the truth, their eyes blinded 
by the very blackness of prejudice, it was a bitter thing 
to hear, and to know that because of Him Jerusalem was 
astir, for, in the language of the text, " All the city was 
moved, saying, Who is this f" It was of that day as it 
is also of this age, the question of questions. There is 



SERMON XIV. 169 

no one within the sphere of Gospel influences but must 
come to some conclusion concerning Jesus Christ. To 
no human ear he may have committed his convictions ; 
they may hardly be well defined, but in some way the 
Man of Nazareth holds a place in his mind, which must 
affect his life here and hereafter. 

Many reasons for the Saviour's entry into Jerusalem 
as recorded in our text and context have been given. 
But the one pre-eminent was surely this: to make an 
appeal, a last appeal, and in such manner as He had not 
yet besought their acceptance. Never before on the 
streets of Jerusalem had His coming been heralded as 
on that day ; and not ever before had His kingly claims 
been asserted as before that populace He then proclaimed 
them. No wonder the city was moved ; no wonder that 
man turned to man with that momentous question 
which involves the issues of every one's life for time and 
eternity. Through all the centuries, with an ever- 
increasing interest, has it passed from generation to 
generation, until to each of us it comes, the leading 
question of our time, — " Who is this ?" Would we be 
but honest in the answer, to find the truth on which to 
base our reply, or to formulate our belief in Him, we 
need go no farther than the chapter in which we find the 
text. 

First. Who is He who on that morning, at six miles 
distant, could tell how at that cross-roads the ass and 
the colt were, and the very condition in which they could 
be found ? This, on the surface, seems to be quite a 
small matter in the record ; but if you will, as one has 
said, " think yourself back into the exact details of the 



170 SERMON XIV. 

situation, even in this little bush you may find a fire that 
burns but does not consume." When I am asked, Why, 
as my divine Teacher, I am to place implicit confidence 
in Him and in His power to comprehend all my wants 
and my woes, my hopes, and my fears, I ask my inter- 
rogator, How, during the ministry of Jesus on earth, 
did He know all the little things of which He spoke ? 
How did He know the whispered conversation between 
Philip and Nathaniel under the fig-tree, and repeat it to 
one of them the next day ? With what power known to 
our laws of optics did He see the house at Bethphage, 
the colt tied and the owner with him ? And then 
notice how He instructs the messengers to explain to any 
one who may inquire the meaning of their procedure. 
Take all the little things (as we are pleased to call 
them) that enter into this, with other chapters in our 
Lord's history, and tell us if they do not aggregate an 
unanswerable argument in favor of Him about whom all 
that city " was moved." But to the question another 
answer comes : " All this was done, that it might be 
fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet." A strange 
way this to fulfil those prophecies which through many 
centuries, in temple and in synagogue, had thrilled the 
hearts and fired the hopes of God's ancient people. 
Yes, a strange way, because it was His way. Never 
surprised Himself, He never did anything simply to sur- 
prise. There was a freshness about everything He did 
which would indicate that it was but the work or the 
thought of the moment ; yet the results all told that it 
was but part of a plan mapped out in the eternal coun- 
cils, just as our times, our places, and all the details of 



SERMON XIV. 171 

our lives, according to His own declaration, are known 
to Him long before. 

The citizens of Jerusalem little knew that day that to 
their nation's capital He had come to fulfil in the letter 
and the spirit some of their grandest prophecies. Little 
thought they that He who was seated on the colt so 
strangely, so humbly, caparisoned was He whose hand, 
holding the bridle, held also the inventory of the uni- 
verse ; that He before whom the multitudes spread the 
palms was He before whom kings would cast their 
crowns ; He whose praise in ritual and song they had 
celebrated : " Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ; 
shout, O daughter of Jerusalem : behold, thy King 
cometh unto thee : he is just, and having salvation ; 
lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal 
of an ass." Thus does the voice of ancient prophecy 
answer the question in those times and in ours, " Who 
is this ?" 

But still another purpose was to be subserved by that 
triumphal entry. The hesitating nation would by it be 
forced to a decision. Three years and more He had 
gone in and out through their temple, their synagogues, 
and their streets ; wherever He went their rulers had 
dogged His steps and sent their spies. His claims to be 
the Messiah in every particular thus far He had vindi- 
cated. They faced those claims, determined resolutely 
to reject them. He was not the Messiah they wanted. 
Notwithstanding, to all, rulers and ruled, priests and 
people, He presents himself publicly, boldly, unmis- 
takably. A few days more and the offering of the 
Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world, will be 



172 SERMON XIV. 

made ; all the details of which, He knows, will be as 
public as Jerusalem can make it. The prophecy that 
tells of that day declares "he is just;" consequently the 
offer of Himself as savior and king must be without 
constraint and without limit. This was the day of the 
real, virtual rejection of Jesus by the people of Jeru- 
salem, and the history of that day is fraught with most 
solemn lessons to us. 

In the mind's eye of the people of that day was an 
ideal savior, but that was not God's ideal. They 
wanted no king meek and lowly, after the fashion in 
which He came. No doubt many were loath to fall in 
with the cruelty of Pharisaic plans concerning Him. 
Still, to all the fury of Pharisaic hate they would let 
Him go rather than declare themselves for Him. Why? 
The plague of their own hearts they had never known. 
By His words and acts sin had been revealed to them as 
until He came they had never seen it portrayed. Neither 
had His commands to abstain from it been based upon 
absolute authority. His law was and is the law of love. 
He told of His love before He gave His law; as He 
prefaced it with, " I am the Lord thy God, who hath 
brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and out of the 
house of bondage." Thus still does He present Him- 
self to us as on the day of His triumphal entry He did 
to Jerusalem. But how still is He received ? Men do 
not treat one another as they do Him, yet He bears with 
them as they would never bear one with another. The 
rejectors of eighteen hundred years ago and those of 
to-day act upon the same principles. The nature of 
sin in the heart they do not see ; consequently the need 



SERMON XIV. 173 

of His errand to this world they do not understand. 
As long as a man in his very heart feels that he has 
never committed that which renders him liable to the 
penalty of an infinitely just God he cannot feel the 
necessity of the atonement of a divine and infinitely 
loving Saviour. So far as He is personally concerned, 
Christ bore a needless commission from heaven; His 
humiliation, His agony, and His death for Him was all 
a work of supererogation. 

Wrong views of ourselves are sure to be accompanied 
with wrong views of Christ. This is one of the most 
important points which can possibly be pressed upon the 
attention of mortal men. The question of the day to 
us each personally is not, Am I Calvinist or Arminian, 
ritualist or dissenter ? but is, Have I felt sin, and, having 
felt it before the Searcher of hearts, do I honestly con- 
fess it ? Am I willing to be saved on His terms, the 
glory of my salvation being put on His head, to be 
saved by no merit of mine, but to be pardoned through 
His blood and righteousness ? Then to the question, 
" Who is this ?" from your heart of hearts shall come 
the response of Thomas : " My Lord and my God." 
And such response is never cold, formal, nor transient. 
It creates a genuine enthusiasm, deep in its character, 
because more thoroughly comprehending Jesus, the 
eyes of the understanding being enlightened. If the 
life of Christ be under the profession of love to Him, 
the expression of that loyalty can now no more be 
repressed than could the hosannas of that day be 
hushed. The men sent the colt, some of the multitude 
cast their garments in the way, others, too poor for 



174 SERMON XIV. 

aught else, cast palm-branches before Him they would 
honor. No wonder the Pharisees were appalled by the 
enthusiasm which Jesus of Nazareth evoked; it was the 
mystery of that day ; to a cold, nominal Christianity, as 
well as to an unbelieving world, the self-sacrificing devo- 
tion of His true followers, the joys of their loyal service 
even in suffering, is the standing mystery still. It is still 
the truth which " cannot be gainsaid," that where there 
is absolute, unreserved consecration, there will be corre- 
sponding expression in the whole demeanor of the 
life. 

And, friends, a truth comes to mind here which must 
not be passed unsaid. How many nowadays are per- 
fectly willing to send Him the colt from the stable, the 
fruit of the fold or the field, or will give of their money, 
but refuse to give themselves ! He asks not yours, but 
you. If we would glorify Him, it is not by yielding 
what, sooner or later, we cannot withhold, but by giving 
that in which He most delights, — the heart and life in 
that true consecration which is " our reasonable ser- 
vice." And this brings us to another word in close rela- 
tion to the text, and which stands in almost strange 
connection. He asserts Himself as Lord of " all ;" yet 
saith He, " Tell him" (the owner of the colt) " that the 
Lord hath need of him." To Him belongeth all things; 
He can foretell and foresee all things ; and yet for the 
prosecution of His glorious designs in His kingdom 
here " hath need" of earthly instrumentalities. On that 
day not one item was omitted to cheer his people in the 
great work of that kingdom which, by His atoning 
blood, was soon to be established. Here are we told 



SERMON XIV. 175 

that the honor and the blessedness of helping Him who 
is now exalted a prince and a savior is given to us ; and 
more, — it is expected of us if we be His followers. The 
highest honor the Lord puts upon His adopted children 
is that of helping Him in the glorious work He is now 
carrying on in the world. 

You remember that but a few days after the scene 
before us there was another, to which this was only 
preparatory. Nearing Calvary, He sank under the 
weight of His cross. He needed that some one should 
aid Him to bear it. So, in His glory now, He needs 
our help to carry out the purposes for which the cross 
was borne. He needs nothing, yet He needs us. He 
needs nothing, yet He needed the colt that was tethered 
in the place where two roads met, in order that upon it 
He might ride into Jerusalem. Forever can He reign 
without man's help, but for man's glory, and that He 
may in man be glorified, He needs and asks it. He 
bore the sins of Simon the Cyrenian on the accursed 
tree ; but on that day on which, in the anguish of His 
bitter sorrow, He ascended the slopes of Calvary, did He 
not need Simon to help Him bear the tree ? To spread 
abroad the glorious consequences of that death upon the 
cross He is calling by myriad voices to every one of us, 
" The Lord hath need of thee." And what tenderness, 
mingled with majesty all divine, is evinced in this tri- 
umphal entry ! When we join the multitudes with the 
question " Who is this ?" we are answered by the Re- 
deemer's tears. When He was come to Jerusalem, " all 
the city was moved ;" but He was moved as none there 
could ever comprehend. As He suddenly turned a 



176 SERMON XIV. 

shoulder of the hill, there lay Jerusalem in all her 
queenly beauty. Her marble palaces and gilded temple- 
roof never flashed more grandly than on that day ; yet 
" He wept." For Himself He never wept. When He 
told His disciples that He was going to Jerusalem and 
what then He would suffer, there were no tears. When 
He was scourged, when through His palms the nails 
were driven, neither was there a word nor a cry. But 
when He came to the city, " He wept over it." At the 
grave of Lazarus He wept, but that was a silent sorrow. 
The language of His grief here rises to the wail of 
bitter lamentation. The scenes forty years would bring 
appeared before Him. He saw the trenches cast about 
the city of David's love, the terrors of the siege, the 
dreadful work of Rome's terrible legions on the very 
spot on which now He stood, the breach in the walls, 
and all the horrors of a war which a righteous and 
angry Father would permit to follow the crucifixion of 
the Son who came to die that Israel might live. 

On this day it would not be too late; they would 
have but to accept their King ; glory was possible, yea, 
was near ; but, alas ! how certain was destruction ! They 
would not, they knew not the things that belonged to 
their peace ; hence the Redeemer's tears. When again we 
ask, " Who is this ?" through those tears we are answered 
in the very words that long ago, by the lips of Moses, He 
addressed the fathers of that people, and through which 
He appeals to us : " Oh, that there were such a heart in 
them, that they would fear me, and keep all my com- 
mandments always, that it might be well with them and 
with their children for ever !" In rebuke of His adver- 



SERMON XIV. 177 

saries, well did He say that day, that if the children of 
His kingdom held their peace, " the very stones would 
cry out." It would have been so in that day of Christ's 
entry. It has been so ever since. Silence has fallen 
these many centuries upon Israel, but the very stones 
of Jerusalem's ruin and desolation have cried out in 
vindication of them who on that day sang, " Blessed 
is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." And 
that is but the foreshadow of the universal reign of 
Christ. 

After the tears, the procession moved on ; He enters 
the city ; there and everywhere all His words and deeds 
were asserted, in all the dignity and power of unlimited 
kingship. However ignorantly the multitude shouted 
His praises that day, they uttered them aright. Onward 
still He moves, and " he must reign until he hath put 
all enemies under his feet." 

Now let us note as we close, first, that enthusiasm, if 
it be true, is a joy to the Lord, the inspiration of the 
disciple, and, as an overflow of the believing heart, a 
testimony to the world. Mere feeling is but fickle 
deceit. 

Second. Our privileges measure our responsibilities, 
and our reward or our doom. The homeless waif will 
not be punished as will the carefully nurtured child who 
dishonors the parent and neglects large opportunity, nor 
Tyre and Sidon, as Chorazin and Jerusalem ; neither will 
Africa or India be weighed in the same scale with 
America. The solemnity of that day will be deepened 
by the " Depart from me" said to some who in these 
very streets have shouted " Hosanna to the Son of 



178 SERMON XIV. 

David." Remember that the crisis of decision will 
be pressed even upon the most reluctant. It comes 
often with noiseless, unsuspected step, and sometimes 
while men thought they only postponed the question it 
has come — and has passed by. 



XV. 

"And he said nnto them, The sabbath was made for 
man, and not man for the sabbath : therefore the Son of 
man is Lord also of the sabbath." — Mark ii. 27, 28. 

" Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy." — Exodus 
xx. 8. 

Among the priceless blessings with which the God of 
nations has blessed this favored land, the character of 
its first founders stands in the very fore-front. With a 
devotion to Gospel principles, intensified by the perse- 
cutions of their own lands, they came as if by divine 
appointment to found a nation, great among the great- 
est of the nations of the earth. Not surprising is it that, 
driven by the lash of a cruel and intolerant bigotry from 
their ancestral homes, they should lay the foundations of 
the new nation down deep upon the Rock of divine truth. 
Recognizing the universal sovereignty of God and the 
universal brotherhood of man as the fundamental prin- 
ciples of the divine government, Christian principles, 
habits, laws, and manners became part and parcel of the 
body politic, — all inwrought through its national life. 
An unprecedentedly rapid growth in all the essential 
elements of national growth and national prosperity was 
and still is the natural fruit of the tree of their planting. 

179 



180 SERMON XV. 

It is a fact in our early history which none can dispute, 
and which we dare not ignore, that among them all, 
irrespective of the European nationality from which 
they came, a due observance of the Sabbath was among 
their first principles. How much the Dutch colonists 
of New York dreaded the demoralizing influences of 
Sabbath profanation is easily shown, not only in their 
lives, and in the character of their children, but also in 
the stringent laws by which, their earliest records show, 
they guarded the day of sacred rest. The same may be 
said of the Pilgrim Fathers ; of the settlers at Cam- 
bridge, at Salem, at Jamestown, and in the Carolinas. 
The sanctification of the Lord's day characterized them 
all, and in a greater or less degree is a characteristic of 
their descendants yet. But the very principle of that 
government, so righteous in itself, can, has been, and 
is used to the abuse of those true principles of Chris- 
tianity which at once form the sinews of a nation's 
strength and develop the highest and noblest type of 
manhood. Regarding the Bible as the Word of God, 
binding the conscience of man with divine authority, 
they were governed by it in all their organizations, 
whether for business or civil polity, and the gates of the 
land have been opened wide to men of all nations and 
climes, to men of every class and condition. By all 
they are welcomed. They all have come to find in this 
land what they could not have in their own. Very 
many have brought with them the same principles of 
their ancestors, — its early settlers. But they also come 
not by thousands only but by tens of thousands, as 
Roman Catholics, as Jews, as atheists, as infidels, and as 



SERMON XV. l8l 

rationalists. All are admitted to equal rights and privi- 
leges ; equal in the acquisition of property ; equal in 
our elections ; equal in eligibility to office ; equal in 
influence in all public concerns. All are allowed to 
worship as they please, or not to worship at all. His 
religion or his want of religion affects no man's civil 
right. One would think this were liberty enough. It 
seems not. Our modern free-thinkers, anti-Sabbata- 
rians, with the imported infidelity, which not a few 
misguided Americans hail as the spirit of progress, 
feel the Sabbath, and every other of the institutions of 
real Christianity, a check upon their liberties. They 
demand a public disregard of the obligations of the 
Sabbath on the part of all public servants, all public 
property, and all public highways. In spite of all they 
and we see of continental ignorance, superstition, big- 
otry, poverty, weakness, and wickedness, instead of the 
Christianity of the Bible, they would put us under the 
Christianity of Italy, France, Spain, and Mexico, and 
consequently, instead of an American, they would give 
us a continental Sabbath. It is only an indifference, 
ignorant and wicked, that can blind the eyes of any ob- 
server to the tendency of the efforts in this direction of 
a very large class of our American people, and among 
them not a few of learning and influence. But from 
learning and the power of the human intellect, how- 
ever great that power be, when allied with atheism or 
rationalism, we at present have nothing to fear. These 
are unmasked foes. We know where to find them and 
how to meet them. Our greatest danger as regards the 
Sabbath, and indeed all real Christianity, is with its 



1 82 SERMON XV. 

nominal friends, — men who under a sense of mistaken 
expediency would weaken the obligations of a people to 
observe God's appointed day of sacred rest to such a 
degree that the divine ends of its appointment to them 
would all be lost. Here, then, we enter the lists, not 
against atheists or rationalists ; they do not believe the 
Bible to be the Book of God and they act accordingly. 
Our controversy on this point is with those who, pro- 
fessing to base all their belief for both worlds on the 
Bible, deny the perpetual obligations of the Sabbath as 
established in Eden, observed by the patriarchs, promul- 
gated from Sinai, sanctioned by our Saviour, and ob- 
served by all His apostles, and since them, by all His 
true followers from the day of His resurrection down to 
this day. 

In our defence of the sacred day, we are met by some 
modern interpreters, who inform us that the Sabbath 
was a Jewish institution, and with the commonwealth 
of Jews to pass away. Where they have derived this 
information we have never yet been able to learn. But 
we affirm very boldly that it was not from their Bibles. 
Our time here will not allow us to go through the 
entire biblical proof of the existence of a day of rest 
coeval with the existence of the human family. That 
the Bible affords abundant proof of it a close reading 
will soon show. When the Saviour in our text replied 
to the Jews who tried to find fault with His work 
because He cured the impotent upon the Sabbath, He 
stated our proposition in a few simple, unmistakable 
words : " The sabbath was made for many He did 
not say for the Jews only or for Christians only, but 



SERMON XV. 183 

using the word man in its generic sense, in its broadest 
meaning, He announced it a blessing given to meet the 
necessities, physical, mental, and spiritual, of the entire 
race. If it be not an institution of appointment prior to 
the issuing of the law, we ask our modern interpreters 
to account to us for the ancient division of time into 
periods of seven days. By what order of nature came 
that? Is seven days an equal part of time, either of the 
solar year or of the lunar month ? What made the be- 
ginning or the end of those hebdomadal periods? Why 
is it that we find reference to those seven-day periods 
all through the patriarchal history ? Let them tell us 
whether or not the offering of sacrifice constituted an 
important part of divine worship up to the coming of 
the Saviour ? Did the offering begin with the institution 
of Moses ? Was it not, too, a part of patriarchal wor- 
ship ? And, if no fixed time was set for their worship, 
what is meant by that marginal reading you find in your 
Bibles : " And it came to pass, in the end of the days, that 
Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto 
the Lord" ? We turn again to Moses, immediately after 
the entrance into the wilderness. No law has yet been 
issued. Many a weary mile shall they travel yet before 
the Lord's voice shall be heard from Sinai. Yet Moses 
speaks as if they were familiar at least with the idea of a 
day belonging to their God. In the direction for the 
gathering of the manna, " Six days," saith he, " shall 
ye gather it ; but on the seventh day, which is the sab- 
bath, in it there shall be none." 

Upon no principle can you explain very much of the 
patriarchal history, other than that which founds the 



1 84 SERMON XV. 

Sabbath with the beginning of the human race. And 
on the seventh day God ended His work which He had 
made : " And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified 
it, because that in it he had rested from all his work, 
which God created and made." There is its origin. 

There is in our poor fallen nature something very 
averse to Sabbath observance according to Bible rule. 
Hence we can easily account for the tendency so fre- 
quently evinced to put it all on the shoulders of the 
poor Jews. It was all for them, but not for us. Just as 
to some New Testament admonition is equally dis- 
tasteful. It was all for the Corinthians, or the Eplicsians, 
but not for us. A very convenient way of disposing of 
obnoxious matter, and on account of its convenience, 
not likely soon to go out of fashion. 

Our next point, therefore, is to show that as the Sab- 
bath did not originate with the Mosaic economy, neither 
did it end there. Every one who has given any close 
attention to the laws and history of the Jews, from the 
exodus to the coming of the Saviour, knows the differ- 
ence between the moral and ceremonial laws as given to 
them. That great difference was first shown by the great 
lawgiver himself, in the manner of their delivery. Every 
word of the ten words was spoken out of the midst of 
the awful drapery in which Sinai on that awful day was 
hung, and in the audience of an awe-struck, trembling 
people. By God's own hand, on tablets of stone, this 
moral law was written. It was to be perpetual. By the 
hand of Moses, but by divine direction, the ceremonial 
law was written. It was on parchment rolls. It was to 
be but transient. The first was to be written on the 



SERMON XV. 185 

hearts of all God's Israel to the end of time. The other, 
for the children of Israel until Messiah should come. 
Forming, therefore, no part of the ceremonial law, the 
abolition of that law, together with all that was typical 
of the promised Saviour, left the fourth, with every 
other of the ten commands, untouched. 

A code of laws condensing and enjoining the duty of 
man to his Maker, and of man to man, the decalogue 
stands forth to-day as authoritative, and in its observ- 
ance is as necessary for the well-being of society to- 
day as it stood four thousand years ago. Perhaps an 
objector would meet us with the question, " According 
to the law of Moses was not the Sabbath-breaker pun- 
ishable with death ?" It was ; what, then ? The viola- 
tion of the seventh command was also punishable with 
death. Does that abolish the seventh command, annul 
the laws of marriage, and make adultery no sin? The 
sixth was punishable with death, and so was the fifth, 
and the third, too. Does that make homicide or blas- 
phemy no sin, now that the old laws concerning the 
avenger of blood and the cities of refuge no longer 
remain, or does it annul the duties of children to their 
parents now ? Take care how you tamper with that 
guard which God in His wisdom and love has set around 
you. Break the line at one point and to your adversary 
you will soon surrender all. Be it also remembered 
that violation of the ceremonial law was never a capital 
offence ; but such is the sin of breaking the moral law 
that death only, as penalty, could adequately represent 
its crime. 

The penalty of violating the laws of the decalogue 
13 



1 86 SERMON XV. 

according to the Mosaic code can be no longer enforced, 
because there is no longer a Jewish commonwealth. 
The laws themselves remain, and the proper enforcement 
of them devolves upon a Christian community under 
whatever form of human government they may live. 
The necessity for the giving of every one of the laws of 
the decalogue is found in the nature of man. As we 
said before, the Sabbath law was made to meet our 
wants, physical, mental, and moral. When the necessity 
for the giving of that law ceases to exist, then, and not 
before, can the law itself be abrogated. Given as it was, 
it binds mankind to mankind. Thus not only in the 
Pentateuch, but in the prophets, as well as throughout 
the Bible history, was it regarded. When in his fifty- 
eighth chapter Isaiah is predicting the glories of the 
' Messianic period, the faithful observance of the Sabbath 
is distinctly mentioned, much to the trouble of the best 
Jewish interpreters of Isaiah. Hear him as he speaks 
of the honor due Messiah : " If thou turn away thy foot 
from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy 
day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the 
Lord, honorable ; and shalt honor him, not doing thine 
own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking 
thine own words : Then shalt thou delight thyself in the 
Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high 
places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of 
Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." The 
public worship of God was by the Jewish law tied to 
Jerusalem. That law was neither designed nor adapted 
for a universal religion. To those, therefore, who would 
have us believe that the Sabbath was a temporary 



SERMON XV. 187 

Mosaic institution to pass away with the old economy, 
it must seem at least a little incongruous that a prophet 
should represent the faithful observance of the day as 
one of the chief glories of the reign of Messiah. 

Fully comporting with all concerning it, that went 
before Him, was the conduct of Messiah himself in 
reference to it. We challenge all to adduce one proof 
from either the practice or the precepts of the Lord, or 
of his apostles, that would even tend to invalidate the 
laws of the Sabbath. When assailed by the Jews for an 
alleged violation of the day, in the performance of his 
works of mercy, He at once silenced them by an appeal 
to their own law in reference to works of necessity and 
mercy. By his very argument in justification of these 
works of necessity and mercy, in the strongest possible 
manner, He acknowledges the authority of the day itself. 
If by his coming the Sabbath law were ended, how easy 
were it for him to have made announcement then and 
there, and strange that so plain a truth should be over- 
looked ! Abrogate it, did He ? Nay, He not only recog- 
nized it, but asserted a special claim in it. " The Son 
of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day." By the very 
exception of the case He strengthens the general rule, 
and so intimates that so holy a day should not upon 
light occasions be otherwise employed than for the 
proper end of its appointment. In favor of our con- 
clusion it is a strong argument that the law of the Sab- 
bath was taken up and incorporated in the new dispen- 
sation by the apostles, the infallible founders of the 
Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. All that was cere- 
monial they discarded ; all that was founded upon the 



1 88 SERMON XV. 

permanent relations between God and man remained. 
The change of the day from the seventh to the first day 
of the week was circumstantial. If a good and sufficient 
reason for that change can be shown, then is the change 
obligatory. The reason is plain. If the creation of the 
world should be commemorated, how much more the 
new creation by Jesus Christ the Lord ! If the deliver- 
ance from the crushing burdens of Egypt be commemo- 
rated, how much more the emancipation from a more 
terrible servitude and an introduction to that liberty 
wherewith Christ makes His people free ! If it were sweet 
to breathe the free air of Canaan after the toil of the 
wilderness, how much sweeter to enjoy the foretaste of 
a heavenly home, all secured by the resurrection of 
Christ from the dead ! and that resurrection and triumph 
is commemorated by the first day of the week. It is 
God's method for keeping the resurrection of Jesus, on 
which our salvation depends, in perpetual remembrance. 
The change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first 
day of the week was made for good reason and by compe- 
tent authority. It is a simple yet a strong historical fact 
that the Christians of the apostolic age ceased to observe 
the seventh and observed the first day of the week as 
the day for religious worship. Thus, from the creation 
down to the present time in unbroken succession, the 
people of God have observed one day in seven for the 
worship of the only living and true God. It is hard to 
conceive of a stronger argument for the perpetuity of 
the Sabbath as divinely instituted than this : " We find 
the fountain of the river in Paradise ; we trace its course 
from age to age. On and on it flows ; through dispensa- 



SERMON XV. 189 

tions, through ages, through nations. They perish, but 
it rolls on ever. Here and there, as behind the moun- 
tains of mediaeval superstition, at times it is lost from 
our view, but again it appears, and in its reappearance 
we discover its identity and find proof of its divinity." 
What the Nile is to Egypt the Sabbath is to all of us. 
If the one be a human device, so is the other. A divine 
power and a divine authority alone can account for its 
continued existence from the beginning until now. 

Our next point is to answer the question, " How shall 
the Sabbath be observed ?" The word of Him by whom 
the Sabbath came leaves us in no doubt here. The first 
sentence of the command is explicit enough. Remember 
it to keep it holy. Sanctify it is another form of the in- 
junction you frequently meet throughout the Scriptures. 
" Hallow it." " Call it a delight ; the Holy of the Lord." 
In deciding how the day is to be observed, or what is 
lawful or unlawful on that day, there are two rules to be 
observed. First, consider the design of the command- 
ment. Anything consistent with that design is lawful. 
Anything inconsistent with it is unlawful. The second 
rule we find in the precepts and example of our Lord 
and His apostles. Not long will we study these two 
points until we find that the Lord in the appointment of 
the Sabbath had a double design. It was to secure rest 
from all worldly toil, worldly pleasures, and avocations ; 
to arrest for a time the current of the worldly life of 
man ; to break him off, for the time being, from the noise, 
the hurry, the excitement, and the anxiety, and even 
the ever-wearing ambitions of those pursuits that are 
purely for time. It was first to give that rest which, 



190 SERMON XV. 

in addition to the rest of the night, man's physical 
frame needs. But another, and still higher design, is 
apparent in the Sabbath appointment. God would turn 
away the thoughts from the worn channels of the six 
days' work, to Himself, to heaven ; to the thought of a 
higher life, a loftier state of existence. It is the day 
on which God is to be worshipped ; his Word studied 
and taught ; and the soul which He would have to live 
forever, in his presence, brought under the heaven-born 
influence of the things unseen and eternal ; in short, 
the day is to be hallowed, — i.e., made holy ; set apart to 
the service of the Lord. It must, however, be ever re- 
membered that the first day of the week is to be observed 
as the Christian Sabbath, the Lord's day. The day 
which commemorates his resurrection ; the day on 
which his gospel is to be proclaimed; his invitations 
offered ; his pardon extended, and his law announced. 
The burden of the works of the day is all in reference 
to Him and his redeeming love. Think, if you can, of 
anything more elevating to our nature than a true con- 
ception of the design of the Lord's day ; not a day of 
sadness, but of joy; not of gloom, but of gratitude. 
Thus we find that the early Christians regarded it. In 
prayer on that day they took the attitude of thanksgiving 
(says an historian), while on other days they knelt ; the 
attitude of humility and contrition. Very many there 
are who admit the divine intention of the Sabbath, and 
its advantages to the human family, who are quite un- 
willing to conform to the rules prescribed by the God 
of the Sabbath ; an inconsistency explained only by 
the many contradictions of our fallen nature. If we ob- 



SERMON XV. 191 

serve the Sabbath at all, because of a divine command, 
we are bound to observe it according to the nature of 
the institution in the true spirit of obedience to the com- 
mand. No more can a partial observance of the fourth 
commandment be acceptable to the Lord than there can 
be a divided allegiance to the principles of the sixth or 
the seventh or the eighth commands. It is : observe it 
as God has directed, or violate it ; hallow it, or put thy 
foot upon it. Here is God's alternative. Here it is that 
the friends of the Sabbath are compelled to take alarm. 
From its open adversaries we dread nothing ; it is from 
the spirit of its advocates, unhappily lukewarm, and ap- 
parently ever ready for a Sabbath compromise. Some 
of them upon the slightest pretext can convert it into a 
day of business. Some without any pretext at all can 
convert it into a day of pleasure. Glad indeed were 
we because of that Christian uprising concerning our 
Columbian Fair. Zion's watchmen had so taken alarm 
upon the subject as to make a special effort against the 
Sabbath's desecration. 

But here we cannot refrain from the expression of a 
fear ; that no permanent good will result from the late 
or from any other movement in the desired direction 
until the people of God themselves take far higher 
ground on this point than they now occupy. If Chris- 
tians would make a Sabbath reform, the reform must 
begin with Christians themselves ; for, if the men of the 
world would observe the Lord's day as they ought to 
do, they would keep it better by far than it is kept by 
many professors of religion. Christians profess to be 
grieved at men pursuing their weekly avocations on this 



192 SERMON XV. 

day. Where they find their moral right to denounce the 
saloon-keeper, even in his infamous work, whose open 
groggery they pass when on their way to buy a Sunday 
paper on Sabbath morning, I confess I do not know. 
If you be right in doing the one so far as the traffic is 
concerned, he cannot be wrong in doing the other. 
What right have you to denounce the man who keeps 
his place of business open on the Sabbath if you spend 
its precious hours in perusing the columns of a Sunday 
paper, that you may be informed to the full respecting 
the business of all the land ? Who shall dare to de- 
nounce him, who himself engages in business corre- 
spondence on the Sabbath ? Some good people would 
be shocked as they enter the sanctuary to see a walk- 
ing-advertisement with business placards on his hat, 
breast, and back moving among the crowds coming to 
God's house. And yet hundreds, it may be thousands, 
of eyes that morning in the public prints of that day 
have rested upon the advertisement of their own business. 
Some Christians seem greatly, and doubtless are honestly 
grieved at the desecration of the day on our public high- 
ways, yet who themselves, by a Sabbath day of travel, 
contribute to that desecration, and apparently without any 
compunctious visitings. Some good Christians, while 
they denounce railway working on the Sabbath, have 
educated themselves into the belief that without sin 
they can employ engineers, ticket-agents, conductors, 
brakemen, firemen, and trackmen, all to take them to 
church. Where they have learned that God has made 
the edification in His sanctuary of one man dependent 
upon the desecration of His holy day by another man is 



SERMON XV. 193 

another point on which we must confess our ignorance. 
It is advanced that in these times the people are scattered 
over an area so vast as make travel on our public high- 
ways for the purpose of public worship, though an evil, 
yet a necessary evil of our advanced civilization. We 
answer : If Christians but exert themselves, they will 
find a better way to meet the difficulties of our advanced 
civilization than by trampling on any of the laws of God. 
If our civilization in its advances be either overriding or 
outrunning the Bible, it is progressing at a rate too rapid 
to be safe. And let all Christians beware how they 
accelerate that speed. Think of the thousands employed 
while we speak on that great net-work of railways which 
covers this broad land. Think of all who to-day have 
been employed in furnishing Sunday papers to the thou- 
sands upon thousands through the cities of the land. 
Gather them all, — railroad men, editors, printers, news- 
boys, and all, — would that amphitheatre you looked at 
a few days ago, with its score and a half of thousands, 
contain them? And yet "the Sabbath was made for 
man !" Were they exempt from its provisions and its 
privileges ? " Remember the sabbath day, to keep it 
holy." Can they trample on it with impunity? Can 
you be partakers of their sins and be guiltless ? Chris- 
tian friends, be not deceived. The arts of our great ad- 
versary, the spirit of darkness, are being vigilantly 
pressed. His mode of attack upon the citadel of our 
hope has changed ; but his toil is still unremitting. 
Direct assault will not do now. The fires of the stake 
have consequently gone out ; the axe has rusted, and 
the Inquisition no more opens its awful gates ; but still 



194 SERMON XV. 

around the strongholds of our hope his forces gather. 
It ia the work of sapping and mining now. What he 
has accomplished over Southern Europe, he by the same 
arts would accomplish in Christian America. Far more 
has France suffered from the loss of her Sabbath than 
she suffered from the hundred dreadful days of her late 
war. The writings of her Voltaires and her Diderots 
only wounded her. The loss of her Sabbaths have 
sapped her strength and brought her to the dust. As 
the same results inevitably follow the same causes, now 
as then it would be first, no Sabbath ; next, no Chris- 
tianity ; last, no God. In other and sadder times in the 
employment of Satanic agency it was the rack and the 
gibbet ; now the enemy has laid hold of the very 
agencies of our enlightenment ; the railroad and the 
printing press; so mighty for good, yet just as mighty 
for evil. " Hold !" says one, in your allusion to the 
press. " Know you not that it furnishes the public with 
fine reports of many of the sermons of the Sabbath ?" 
We know it. We know, too, that if by furnishing the 
people with Sunday papers you either keep the people 
from the hearing of those sermons, or destroy their in- 
fluence if heard, then little does the devil care how ex- 
tensively they may all be published. Full well he knows 
that men who cannot go to the Lord's house are not apt 
to read the reported sermons in their own houses. " Why 
lift your voice," cry the press and the patrons of the 
railroads, " against us ? Will we not go on as we have 
gone ? and who shall hinder us ?" So they will. The 
Sunday cars will roll on when God's last sentence will 
be rolling over our shrouded forms. And the stillness of 



SERMON XV. 195 

some Sabbath morn will be broken by the noise of some 
Sunday press when you and I will be silent. Look 
now at our subject in the solemn light of that day. If 
you on God's day cannot find food for your immortal 
spirit in that which God has provided, on what, in 
the eternal and changeless state, will your disembodied 
spirits feed ? If now the Sabbath be a weariness, and 
you can only find relief from it in the violent delights of 
the six days, where shall the soul find rest throughout 
the eternal roll of everlasting years ? 

Christians, friends : when before a pagan court in the 
city of Rome about fifteen hundred years ago the fol- 
lowers of the Lord were tried for their faith, in the 
very sight of the wild beasts in the arena they had to 
answer this test question : " Dominicum servaste?" — Have 
you kept the Lord's day ? To stand up for Jesus cost 
something then, it costs something yet. From another 
and a higher court that same question is addressed to 
each of us now, and when an allotted number of Sabbaths 
are passed, from an awful tribunal the same question 
will be addressed us again. Answer it well now, and 
you shall answer it happily then. He who says to-day, 
" Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy," is the 
same who then shall say, " Blessed are they that do his 
commandments, that they may have right to the tree of 
life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." 



XVI. 

" Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not 
dofie it ?" — Amos iii. 6. 

You need hardly be told that the meaning of the word 
evil as we here find it is not sin. By the mouth of Isaiah 
God comforts His people with the plain assertion of 
His gracious sovereignty as He declares, "I make peace, 
and create evil : I the Lord do all these things." 

As holy as He is gracious and kind, God cannot be 
the creator of aught that He abhors. When, therefore, 
in the text He speaks of evil He means not moral evil 
but suffering. In His pure administration the pressure 
of distress moves close upon the heels of iniquity. By 
Micah He cries, " The Lord's voice crieth unto the city, 
and the man of wisdom shall see thy name : hear ye the 
rod, and who hath appointed it." By Micah, by Isaiah, 
by Jeremiah, by Amos ; indeed, by all His prophets the 
Lord maintains a controversy with Israel. In the pas- 
sage of which the text is a part, God pleads with His 
people on most touching grounds, — that of His peculiar 
love, as manifested in His peculiar dealing with them. A 
dealing in which He had so signally distinguished them 
from other nations in honor, in privilege, and in substan- 
tial blessing. " Hear this word that the Lord hath spoken 
against you, O children of Israel, against the whole 
196 



SERMON XVI. 197 

family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, say- 
ing, You only have I known of all the families of the 
earth : therefore I will punish you for all your iniqui- 
ties ?" This is the language of unrequited kindness, of 
unimpeachable equity, and of injured honor. On every 
ground the severity of His visitation was merited; in 
infinite mercy alone had the execution of it been sus- 
pended. But the question here arises : " What caused 
that almost constant alternation in God's dealing with 
that dearly beloved people? An alternation between 
goodness and severity, between judgment and mercy." 
The veiy same we answer which now necessitates those 
wonderful and to us all-mysterious interferences of 
Israel's God; judgments as they run all through the 
history of nations, — judgments as they dot the record of 
every generation. It is that His people shall hear His 
Word and read His providences in the same light and 
to the same end. Isaiah set forth the end and object of 
his powerful visitations when he declared, " When the 
judgments of the Lord are in the earth, the inhabitants 
of the world will learn righteousness." In the human 
heart there is a natural tendency to alienation from God; 
a constantly prevailing power leading us to forget Him. 
One of the most mournful features of this disposition 
of fallen nature is that amid the enjoyments of life He 
from whom all those enjoyments come is by far less 
fondly loved, or devoutly revered, than in its most press- 
ing calamities. 

Comparatively rare are the instances of sinners brought 
to repentance and to God by success in life ; but not rare 
are the instances of persons chosen in the furnace of 



198 SERMON XVI. 

affliction, once courted and led away by prosperity, 
arrested, reclaimed, and led back under the sorrowful 
guidance of adversity. 

But we make no such bold assertion as that this is 
the natural effect of divine chastisement. Nay, rather 
in itself it only tends to alienate, to fret, to provoke, to 
close the ear to the still, small voice of love which comes 
even in the storm ; to make the heart more and more 
rebellious. It is this which creates the need of noting 
and pointing out the lessons taught in divine judgments, 
and of pressing those lessons upon the observation of 
men. It is the divine mission of all calamities that the 
text here calls attention to; and how impressively it 
calls ! " Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath 
not done it ?" 

The topic would be an appropriate one, even apart 
from that disastrous event which has induced the pres- 
entation of this subject before you. For scarce one 
month of the year passes but the lessons of Divine 
Providence by fire and by flood command us to stand 
with bowed heads before Him who ruleth over all ; while 
from many a broad field, and many a circle of commerce 
and mart of trade over our land there speaks a voice 
which tells of the mysterious and the righteous rule of 
Him who at His will gives either bounty or barrenness ; 
gives either success or disaster, to the sons of commerce, 
mechanics, agriculture, or trade. 

In all this God would have His people in this land 
consider that He is speaking to them as He did to Israel 
when He reminded them that in judgment He caused it 
to rain upon one city and not upon another. From it 



SERMON XVI. 199 

all He would have His judgments made our blessing, 
by causing us to lift up our eyes to Him who crieth, 
" Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not 
done it ?" 

The divine agency in inflicting what the text calls 
evil next demands our thought. We regard this agency 
as opposed, first, to what men call chance ; next, to 
second causes. Chance ! It is a word of very common 
use among many, but of the many few have ever tried 
to give it a clear definition. The truth is, chance is 
nothing; it is only a word used on certain points to tell 
of our ignorance. If I say an event has happened by 
chance, meaning that it had no cause, it is atheism ; be- 
cause it is that it takes place independent of a superior 
power. If it be in accordance with the will of that 
Superior power, then is it Providence, on whose domain 
there is not even a resting-place for what we call chance. 
Chance ! a poet speaks truly when he thus defines it : 

" All chance ! direction which we cannot see." 

There is an atheism, directly and properly so called, 
which denies entirely the existence of a God. There is 
an atheism which admits existence, but denies all super- 
intendence of human beings, and leaves the Creator 
ignorant of, if not indifferent to, all their concerns. Such 
of old was the system of Epicurus ; which, however, had 
the merit of consistency in this, that with the denial of 
Providence it associated the denial of mother creation. 
And not much better is the godless systems of many of 
our own day. What advantage there is in admitting the 
existence of a Diety who feels no father's love, and ex- 



200 SERMON XVI. 

ercises no paternal care over us, we cannot see. As well 
no God at all as a God who cares nothing for us and 
exercises no superintendence over us. 

The sentiment of the text is the exact reverse of this, 
as is the entire Bible history. All things are of God, is 
written on its every page. All through its history, in 
every turn of its details, we meet His eye and discern 
His hand. That all His works bear witness of an 
origin infinite in power, wisdom, and skill, many a man 
admits ; but there, in their theory, the power and the 
care of Deity ends. We ask them, Is it not a fact that 
all matter tends to a state of rest? Yet in all the uni- 
verse, worlds or worlds, where is an atom not in motion ? 
When He created motion He imparted it to the universe 
He made ; this all admit. But still we ask, What to the 
remotest planet, what to the last atom, keeps it in motion ? 
A general providence many admit who are slow to con- 
sent to the fact of a particular or special providence. 
They forget that the general includes the particular, just 
as the whole includes all the parts. They would grant 
a providence in great, but deny it in small things, for- 
getting first that the true majesty of God consists in the 
unembarrassed universality of his superintendence ; in its 
embracing without confusion and without an effort of 
thought all the endless complication of events and all 
the immense variety of being. Great events and small 
are inseparably and intimately connected ; great and 
small are linked together, so that the continuity of the 
chain depends as much upon the smaller as upon the 
larger links in the process. The machinist when he 
looks at the great wheels is well aware, though his eye 



SERMON XVI. 201 

does not penetrate any farther than that of the novice, 
that on what apparently are trivial movements the effec- 
tive revolutions of the large ones depend ; so that were 
but a pin taken out, or the smallest wheel in the interior 
shifted or broken, all might be impeded or brought to a 
stand. Thus is it in what seems to us the intricate 
movement of divine Providence. The proof of our 
position is written not only on every page of Bible 
record, but all through the world's history. By Him 
who spoke as never man spoke, in what strong and de- 
lightful terms is this fact stated : " Are not two sparrows 
sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on 
the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of 
your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye 
are of more value than many sparrows." There is 
hardly anything we can imagine less in apparent magni- 
tude in itself or its consequences than the death of a 
sparrow, and in the words just quoted the inference is 
drawn from the less to the greater in a form most en- 
couraging and cheering to all the intelligent creatures of 
God, and especially to all His redeemed children. On 
the principles of inferential reasoning I may say, If, 
without our Father, a sparrow falleth not to the ground, 
how, then, shall there be evil in a land or a city, — evil 
which affects the condition, either temporal or spiritual, 
of intelligent or immortal beings, of beings who are so 
susceptible not merely of physical suffering, but of far 
sorer distresses, and the Lord hath not done it ? When 
trouble comes in any shape either to the whole land or 
to any of its parts, to a community or to a family, it but 
deepens the gloom to be told, " A chance has come 
14 



202 SERMON XVI. 

upon us." When the clouds of sorrow darken and the 
storm breaks, let me rather know that it all is from Him 
who giveth the winds His commandment, and having 
executed His will can say, " Peace, be still." Sorrow 
and suffering may be in the city, but shall it be and the 
Lord hath not done it ? 

Let us notice next, as taught in the lessons of our 
times, that divine agency is to be regarded in contra- 
distinction to an exclusive attention to what we call 
second causes. How frequently is a something called 
Nature deified ! And not less frequently second or sub- 
ordinate causes are so contemplated and insisted on as 
to exclude from the mind the thought of the great 
originating Cause of all being, and the supreme uncon- 
trolled Director of all events. In our times, when 
science is asserting claims so broad, we are in great 
danger, in accounting for our calamities, of overlooking 
the supreme among the subordinate; of stopping short 
before we have gone high enough. Duty and interest 
combine in teaching us reverently and habitually to bear 
in mind that all second causes are under the unceasing 
and sovereign control of the great First Cause ; that no 
one of them in any part of His dominion can operate 
but according to His superintending guidance. Thus 
is it with the elements of nature. There are laws, it is 
granted, by which all the movements, the production 
and changes of the natural world are effected. But they 
are His laws. He framed them. In themselves they 
are not powers, but only the rule according to which 
His power operates. All the rules for the operation of 
His power resolve themselves simply into His infinite 



SERMON XVI. 203 

wisdom ; hence whatever takes place in conformity with 
those rules is but the manifestation of that wisdom. 
We have wet or dry seasons, cold or hot, sickly or 
healthy. The astronomer or the meteorologist dis- 
covers the causes in nature for the one or the other. His 
researches are right, and are instruments of blessing in 
providing for our comfort and in protecting us from 
danger. % We all must admit our indebtedness to the 
researches of science. But never for a moment must 
we lose sight of the fact that God in every instance is 
the director of those causes, the sovereign and wise 
ordainer of them all. How finely does Jeremiah teach 
us on such occasions the exclusion from divine agency 
of not only the gods of the heathen, but also of the 
powers of nature: "Are there any among the vanities 
of the Gentiles that can cause rain ? or can the heavens 
give showers ? Art not thou he, O Lord our God ? 
therefore will we wait upon thee : for thou hast made all 
these things." 

Such, too, is the lesson of rational devotion taught us 
in the Scriptures as to famines and pestilences, earth- 
quakes, thunders and lightnings, tempests by sea and 
land, with every other power or element by which 
human destruction is occasionally wrought. Hear Him 
in one of the Psalms : " Fire, and hail ; snow, and vapor; 
stormy wind fulfilling his word." Hear Him in another : 
" Who walketh upon the wings of the wind ; who 
maketh his ministers a flame of fire." Air, earth, and 
sea, with all that they contain, are thus subject to His 
will. When, therefore, we think that we have accounted 
for disease from the state of the atmosphere, for the 



204 SERMON XVI. 

desolations of the storm from the theory of the winds, 
we have stopped in our pursuit, scarce half-way. We 
must rise to Him by whom these, with every other 
element of nature, are commissioned to work their 
respective results. In the instrument the Master Work- 
man must never be forgotten. 

What is His creation less than a capacious reservoir 
of means, formed for His use and ready at His will? 
But times there are when the interference of the Crea- 
tor in the very elements around us is so unlooked- 
for, so uncommon, and so startling as to border upon 
the very province of the miraculous; times when the 
student of nature stands equally abashed and awe- 
stricken with the man who never made the laws of 
wind and tide a study. Such was the character of that 
dreadful visitation in which His presence and His power 
were felt in that valley of untold disaster and of awful 
death where for ten dreadful days the pitiless elements 
have done a work unprecedented in the history of the 
land. No wonder that the whole civilized world stood 
aghast at the report of the grief-laden wires on the morn- 
ing of a week ago. 

To any one with even a slight acquaintance with the 
beautiful valley of the Conemaugh its condition to-day 
is utterly inconceivable. Half a century ago the rich 
centre of one of the richest regions in the entire land, — 
the point where the artificial water-ways of Pennsylvania 
were fed, and on which the largest part of commerce 
between the seaboard and the West was borne. As the 
years rolled on, and its resources developed by many 
channels, material prosperity rolled like streams to en- 



SERMON XVI. 205 

rich it. When from the lofty and massive structure — 
now known as the Bridge of Death — one beheld that 
valley, with its lofty mountains on either side, its palatial 
homes, its cottages, its churches, its mills, furnaces, and 
factories, all telling of industry, of thrift, of elegance, 
and refinement, — in a word, of prosperity on every side, 
— you felt that few fairer scenes on earth are given for 
the eye to feast than there. But to-day, the valley of 
the Conemaugh is but the mournful synonym of a 
destruction that cannot be conceived ; of a sorrow the 
depths of which by the Infinite Father alone can be 
fathomed. And shall not we now ask, Was not the 
Lord's voice upon those waters ? The God of majesty 
thundered ; and even from out that holocaust, at the 
very thought of which we shudder, do we not hear Je- 
hovah speak ? Does He not there assert Himself as 
the cause above all causes ? Is it not there declared by 
flood and by fire that His law is above all laws ? Were 
the dwellers in that valley, in the midst of those scenes 
of beauty, of bounty, and of imagined security, un- 
warned of the impending calamity? Note how in lov- 
ing-kindness, by the very voices of nature, He warned 
them of their peril. Since the fatal 31st of May it 
has come out that, by those most competent to know, 
notes of alarm in years past were often given, and at 
times the gravest apprehensions felt. But the people, 
true to one of the strangest of human instincts, grew 
careless of warning ; apprehensions were dissipated ; yet 
all the while, silently but not imperceptibly, day by 
day the danger grew, until on that dreadful afternoon 
the woe-fraught messages to fly for life were sent where- 



206 SERMON XVI. 

ever they could be sent. But too late then. Too late 
even to be heard by thousands ; too late for thousands 
of those who did hear to flee for safety ; for whither 
could they flee ? Age, infancy, the strong and the brave, 
all alike helpless, in an avalanche of waters. From the 
very lowest level you take, God's word of warning 
comes from that valley to all the land. It tells us in 
tones as distinct as they are awful, that on no condition 
can we claim the protection of His providence other 
than by obedience to His laws, physical as well as 
moral; or, if you choose, natural as well as spiritual. 
Reason combines with revelation in declaring that, for 
protection against all evil, the powers God has given 
us, fashioned after His own attributes, must be exer- 
cised always, and always to the utmost. None of us 
with impunity can be at all indifferent to bodily danger 
either, as it respects our homes, our persons, our habits, 
our pleasures. The firmest trust that ever honored our 
Heavenly Father is that which prompts us to ask Him, 
whose loving care is ceaselessly over us, to teach us 
how we may best care for ourselves. Having heard, 
promptly to obey. Trust in Providence? All else is but 
the recklessness of fatalism. What were the masonry of 
man ? A wall twenty feet thick, when through it God 
was giving the warnings of His natural law, against the 
forces of a lake three miles long, one mile wide, and in 
places an hundred feet deep ? Can there be evil in the 
city and the voice of the Lord not be in it ? May the 
Lord grant that the sorrowful lesson of the Conemaugh 
Valley to us all, even as it regards our physical dangers, 
shall not have been taught in vain. But can you pass 



SERMON XVI. 207 

the admonition that comes with this tale of woe bearing 
upon the higher, the spiritual, and eternal interests of 
all who hear it? Responsibility for the catastrophe 
which has plunged the nation into mourning we all feel 
must rest somewhere. On whom and how many God 
alone knows. Can we now forget that we all are on 
trial, and on each it depends what for his unending 
eternity the verdict shall be ? I need hardly remind you 
that your eternal interests make up the burden of this 
Book, and that from week to week by the living voice 
of His messengers He repeats the tender yet solemn 
call. Need we remind you how (and not seldom) He 
enters your circle, and often without the warning of an 
hour from your side, and in the very flush of hope 
and health, ushers now one and then another into the 
presence of a Judge from whose righteous verdict there 
can be no appeal, and into the realities of an eternity 
which knows no change ? And what but in one form or 
another is all this but God's own voice calling, " Prepare 
to meet thy God" ? None the less were the dangers of 
that fated valley because of its fancied security. Pleasure- 
parties under cloudless skies often skimmed the placid 
waters of that lovely lake. But still the Angel of Death 
hovered over. As it was there it is here. The voice of 
God is very tender. With warning in varied form there 
also is the pleading of a Father's affection — in patience 
waiting — while judgment, in mercy held back, presses 
against the barriers of infinite love, to execute its dread 
commission against the false prophets who preach peace, 
peace, when there is no peace, and against the self-de- 
luded who, in spite of all that God can do, say, " Peace 



208 SERMON XVI. 

and security," until suddenly " destruction cometh, and 
there be none to deliver." But now am I here reminded 
that the terrors of that night fell alike upon God's people 
and those who never claimed to be His people. True, 
to human eye they did ; but mark it, to human eye 
only, for there was a distinction. It is not needed that 
the laws of nature should change because of God's love 
to His children. It is only necessary that His grace and 
power should adapt them to those calamities that issue 
from His laws. Not a cry of the feeblest child but He 
heard, and not a promise but to the last letter was ful- 
filled. The awful agonies of that night I do not wish 
to know ; but this I know, that when in terror they 
heard the alarms of that afternoon they were nearer to 
glory than they thought. Fearful must have been the 
roll and the roar of the waters, but the jasper sea was 
near ; the end of all pain was near ; near the crown ; 
the throne ; and the inheritance. What mattered it 
to them who had claimed Jesus, because He claimed 
them, that the inheritance earth called princely had 
perished in a moment? What mattered it that their 
bodies unwept, because unrecognized, should be com- 
mitted to the great silent cemetery of the unknown ? 
Upon the palms of his hands — yea, upon his very 
heart — all their names are written. And in that day 
when He maketh up his jewels his Father will know 
them ; his holy angels will know them ; an assembled 
universe will know them as called to inherit the king- 
dom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. 
Yes, a distinction does God surely make between His 
people and those who refuse to be called His. And in 



SERMON XVI. 209 

more points than there is time even to name does He 
mark that distinction. Were the best of earth's fortunes, 
the best that man could have, we would have no busi- 
ness with this theme to-day ; for whatever it is, it was 
held by many there. And the report of a day or two 
ago, of the gathering of more than a hundred agents 
of different companies, told that " all precautions against 
loss had been made." Look at it now ! Was there ever 
written a sarcasm more derisive of earth's securities than 
is written there ? Oh, happy they who from that scene, 
or from all scenes, can look up to an inheritance which 
by the calamities of time cannot be touched ! An in- 
heritance bought by the blood of Him who hath said, — 
" Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth 
them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his 
house upon a rock : and the rain descended, and the floods 
came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house ; and 
it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock." 



XVII. 

Modern Criticism, and the Imprecatory Psalms* 

We are not sure that the title of this paper is not 
misleading. The criticism of the day which so insidi- 
ously assails the Word of the Lord is in the largest part 
not modern. Old theories which have been exploded 
long ago are revived, newly dressed, and recommended 
to the religious world. It is a great mistake to suppose 
that Satan's wit is inexhaustible. Very many of His 
delusions are but stale artifices, newly tricked up, and 
adapted to the age, the times, in which they are to do 
their work. 

We have somewhere read of an eminent servant of 
God who said that in all the arguments of professed 
infidels his faith had never been so much tried as by the 
suggestions of Satan to his own mind concerning the 
Word of God. He was not singular. Who of God's 
children has not felt, perhaps often felt, something 
closely akin to this unhappy experience ? We mistake 
when we think that the most effective weapons of our 
great adversary are employed with a Hume, a Huxley, 

* An address read before the ministerial association, " Chi Alpha," of 
St. Louis. 

2IO 



SERMON XVII. 211 

or a Paine. It is against God's own children that Satan 
uses his keenest weapons. Too cunning, in these days 
he would never advise that the entire Word be cut in 
pieces and cast into the fire ; he only suggests the use 
of Jehoiakim's penknife. Go through what seems to 
be darkened counsel ; in it you will find what indeed 
purports to be divine counsels for the race, clothed in 
oriental garb or rude metaphor, which is beneath the 
culture of the day ; cut it out. You will find as you 
search it commands which cannot be obeyed, incom- 
patible with our advanced civilization. Cut them out, 
and what matters it that the knife may go right through 
the decalogue ? While his assault, last and strongest, is 
upon that part of the Scriptures termed " the impreca- 
tory psalms." 

" Can it be," one asks, " that a book can come from an 
infinitely loving God breathing so many and such bitter 
curses as you find in the Psalms and elsewhere ?" Our 
common humanity condemns it. The voice of Nature, 
which sends her rain upon the just and the unjust, and 
makes the sun to shine alike upon the evil and the good, 
condemns it ; and can it be that this is the word of an 
infinitely loving father to us ? Is it not antagonistic to 
all the teaching of Him who has said, " Love your 
enemies, do good to them that hate you, and pray for 
them that despitefully use you and persecute you" ? 
By the fair speeches and the smooth words of the 
tempter many a humble child of God has been 
troubled ; so much troubled that for the time his very- 
faith has been unsettled, and in the words of one of 
these very Psalms he gives expression to his bowed 



212 SERMON XVII. 

spirit : " Stablish thy word unto thy servant, who is 
devoted to thy fear." 

Given, as is all the Scripture, by inspiration of God, 
we cannot use the knife on any part, even of that 
which, for want of a better term, we call the " impre- 
catory Scriptures." We say " Scriptures" because the 
principle runs all through the Bible, and in other parts 
such expression is even stronger than we find it in the 
Psalms. It is not explained by setting this forth as a 
feature of the dispensations before Christ. God is the 
author of all dispensations ; the one loving spirit broods 
over and breathes through them. To me the Bible is 
nothing if it be not, from first to last, all of Christ. It 
is because we lose sight of this fundamental truth, this 
that lies at the very foundation of all our hope and 
comfort, that so much perplexity comes from our im- 
perfect view of the grand truths lying deep down in 
those Psalms that have often troubled us. Could I any- 
where find anything vindictive in this Word, at that 
moment the foundations of my faith were unsettled. 
What is bad in the sight or hearing of a Holy God at 
one period cannot be good at another. Was Moses 
ever vindictive to Pharaoh ? No more than was Paul to 
Nero. Was Joshua so to the Canaanites ? No more 
than was Peter after Pentecost to Herod. Once the 
beloved disciple asked the Master to call down fire from 
heaven on their enemies. He never forgot the answer : 
" Ye know not what spirit ye are of." What the spirit 
is which since the fall has reigned over us all, the judg- 
ment hall, the garden, and the cross have shown us. 
That spirit must be in perfect harmony with the entire 



SERMON XVII. 213 

word, else Jesus is not " the same yesterday, to-day, and 
for ever." 

Does that spirit live in those songs which God gave 
to His ancient people, in which His praise as Creator, 
Preserver, Defender, Vindicator, and Avenger was to be 
sung in their homes, in their temple, and throughout 
their generation ? We think it does. And we think, 
too, that among all the sacred writers there are none 
who, when really understood, show less of the spirit so 
severely censured than is in David himself. Look at 
him and listen as he holds the last recorded interview 
with Saul. The memories of Engedi and Hachilah rise 
before them both. For the moment the intrigues of 
Cush, David's fierce enemy, seem to be at an end ; the 
piece of the royal robe, the spear, and the bottle, each 
silently, but, oh, how eloquently ! prove that while David 
feels his wrongs, to the King of kings he leaves it that 
those wrongs should be righted. How wonderful is it that 
Saul's last words to him are the words of blessing, when 
he saw his own ungenerous conduct in contrast with 
that of his rival ! He said after Engedi, and he spoke 
it through his tears, "Is this thy voice, my son David? 
Thou art more righteous than I : for thou hast rewarded 
me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil. And now, 
behold, I know well that thou shalt surely be king, and 
that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in thy 
hand." His last words after Hachilah, and the last that, 
according to the record, David heard him utter, were, 
" Blessed be thou, my son David : thou shalt both do 
great things, and also shalt still prevail." Let who may 
think David vindictive, Saul, the bitterest foe he ever 



214 SERMON XVII. 

had, did not. And then, in perfect keeping with all, is 
his touching lament over the slain on Gilboa. 

Such is the spirit of David; the spirit which charac- 
terizes all his sacred songs ; but which, in language so 
unmistakable as to bid defiance to all his adversaries, 
runs all through the seventh Psalm ; a Psalm composed, 
it is believed, immediately after his last interview with 
Saul. Perhaps, however, an objector to our position 
asks, " What will he do with the sixty-ninth, and the 
one hundred and ninth, and the one hundred and thirty- 
seventh ?" Does he not know that Christ and His apostles 
have forever settled the application of what He chooses 
to call the curses of this first-named Psalm, the sixty- 
ninth ? Go to Matthew, Mark, and John ; and as you hear 
the very words of this Psalm from the cross, you soon find 
that the Psalmist needs no apology here. Jesus, as if to 
leave the matter beyond a peradventure says, in John 
xix. 28, "I thirst;" and, "that the Scripture might be 
fulfilled," they gave him vinegar to drink. And then 
Paul takes this same Psalm, and in his eleventh chapter 
to the Romans, in the ninth and tenth verses, quotes verses 
twenty-two and twenty-three, and so forever settles a 
part of its meaning as a prophecy concerning the Jews. 
A fearful one it is ; but the woes there depicted they with 
their individual voices called down upon themselves. 
Indeed, as now we read the sixty-ninth and the one hun- 
dred and ninth we find it hard to realize that they were 
not written by the light of the torches, in the shades ot 
Gethsemane, or in the shadow of the cross, amid the 
sorrows of Calvary. In both David seems to overleap 
the centuries which lay between him and the sufferings, 



SERMON XVII. 215 

yet the triumphs, of his King ; he seems to see the kiss 
of the traitor imprinted on that immaculate cheek ; he 
seems to hear the very ring of the silver pieces as they 
were cast upon that marble floor. All in fearful array 
seem to have passed before his mind. Of the applica- 
bility of these Psalms, and of the one hundred and ninth 
especially, we are left in no doubt, as, after the ascension 
of Christ, they gather to elect a successor to Judas. 
" As is written," says Peter, " in the book of Psalms, Let 
his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein : 
and, His bishoprick let another take." As we read those 
very Psalms, the sixty-ninth and one hundred and ninth, 
in the light shed upon them by the Redeemer, when from 
them he makes such frequent quotation, our views of 
all change. We can then realize that he shows us won- 
drous things in His law. In youthful days they used to 
grate harshly upon our ears : not so now. They help us 
in this the house of our pilgrimage ; and in that day, 
when glorified, we shall see His face, we will remember 
them, in praise and worship, when we shall see Him " in 
the midst of the throne : a lamb as it had been slain." 
But one there is which, perhaps, has been the subject of 
more profane ribaldry — we could hardly call it honest 
criticism — than any or all the others combined, — the one 
hundred and thirty-seventh. Among all the Hebrew 
odes, none with a sweeter tone or more touching pathos 
was ever written by David, and yet one which declares 
the righteous retributive justice of a covenant-keeping 
God as does no other. It first calls to mind the fact, 
and a mournful one it is, that when God visits a people, 
because of their sins, to the eye of man His children 



2l6 SERMON XVII. 

and His enemies suffer alike in the common calamity of 
His avenging justice. But this Psalm teaches that God 
seeth not as man seeth, and His persecuted sorrowing 
ones soon are taught to see as He sees. It is not all 
Israel whom we see bowed in sorrow, sitting in the dust 
by the rivers of Babylon ; they are only the representa- 
tives of God's true Israel. Their captives approached 
them, " Sing us one of the songs of Zion ?" " One of 
the songs of Zion?" "The Lord's song?" That's 
a joyous song ! a song of praise for deliverance ; a 
song such as that Miriam sung when Israel stood and 
looked upon their oppressors, overwhelmed in the depths 
of the sea! Oh, how could they sing as once they 
sang ? — for then it was that Israel sang in the days of 
her youth ; the day that she came up out of the land of 
Egypt. How could they sing the Lord's song in Babylon ? 
Their temple, with its associations so sacred, levelled, 
their homes destroyed, the cry of their captives still in 
their ears, — " Raze it ! raze it !" Their wives slain, — or 
worse than slain, — and the blood of their infant children 
upon the pavements of Jerusalem. Little wonder that 
now they exclaimed, " Jerusalem, if I forget thee, let 
these right hands forget their skill ; and if we do not re- 
member thee, let these tongues cleave to the roof of our 
mouths." And still less is the wonder that then they 
recalled the words of their God, spoken by the mouth of 
Isaiah (in the thirteenth chapter) against Babylon. They 
knew that He had made their cause His, their quarrel 
His quarrel, and that the blood of their slaughtered in- 
nocents He surely would avenge. They now heard 
their God say that in the day of His fierce anger He 



SERMON XVII. 217 

would remove Babylon out of her place. Among the 
many terrible judgments to be inflicted upon Babylon he 
says, "Their children also shall be dashed to pieces be- 
fore their eyes ; their houses shall be spoiled, and their 
wives shall be ravished." In no other than a prophetic 
light can you rightly read this Psalm. And to know 
how fully and fearfully that prophecy was fulfilled, turn 
to Prideaux, as in his third book he tells the crimson 
story of the siege of Babylon in the fifth year of Cyrus. 
But put this Psalm in the very worst light in which pro- 
fane criticism can put it, and even then we can show that 
there is not in it the breath of revenge ; it is not vindic- 
tive, but it is grandly vindicative. When it is said, 
" Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little 
ones against the stones," it is not said, " Happy shall he 
be because of his bloody deed." When Israel sang that 
song they had no vengeance to appease by the blood 
of the innocent offspring of their cruel oppressors. 
When Babylon's appointed time would come, what 
would her conquerors know of the word of Israel's God, 
which their acts were in that day fulfilling ? When God 
predicted the woes because of the sins of Israel He said, 
speaking of the instrumentality to be employed (Isaiah x. 
5), " O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in 
their hand is mine indignation." Assyria did to Israel as 
God had said. When the time came for Him to reckon 
with Assyria, you have only to change the word Assyria 
into Persia and read, " I will send him against the people 
of my wrath. I will give him a charge, to take the spoil, 
and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the 
mire of the streets. Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither 
15 



218 SERMON XVII. 

does his heart think so." Thus it is that God to this very 
day gives the sword its crimson commission ; thus it is 
that by blood He avenges His bloody quarrel. Israel 
knew that it was sure to come. She knew that in that 
day of her dire calamity she could look up to Him who 
hath said, " Vengeance is mine ; I will repay." She 
thought of the day of righteous retribution, and thought 
more in sorrow than in anger of the cruel fate of the 
helpless among the helpless, Babylon's hapless little 
ones. 

The principle contained here is the very one announced 
by those lips which spoke as never yet man spoke, when 
he said, " With what measure ye mete it shall be measured 
to you again!' A mawkish sensibility may object, as it 
will, but accept this truth it must. 

For murder-stroke must murder-stroke be paid. And 
this is a principle wide as the world and lasting as the 
race. No nation has been exempt from it, nor has any 
age or generation. It must be so, because it is one of 
those very features which prove us the children of Him 
in whose image we have been created. True it is that 
where God is not known, and consequently the blessed 
restraints of His Gospel unknown, it is evinced only as 
a brutal passion, and even worse. But let the influences 
of Jesus control man, and you see it only a principle of 
sympathy, of justice, and see it exercised as one of the 
safeguards of society. 

Four hundred years ago, the bell of St. Germain sent 
out its fatal peal. Then followed a scene into the details 
of which imagination refuses to enter ; ten days and ten 
nights such as, God grant, this world may never see 



SERMON XVII. 2I9 

again. The history of those days never could be 
written. There were no need that it should. In the 
breast of Protestant Christendom will their memory live 
as long as a sense of sympathy and of justice lives in 
the hearts of those who have been redeemed by the 
blood of Christ. Who could help the cry, " When 
God inquireth for blood will he not remember them ?" 
Who would say " vindictive" then and there to the 
prayer, " Arise, O Lord, in thine anger, and let thine 
enemies be scattered ; because of the rage of our 
enemies, awake to the judgment thou hast commanded" ? 
There was pity in many a Christian heart, and nowhere 
a sense of anything but righteous retributive justice, 
when, in the dark days of the French Revolution, 
Bartholomew was remembered. All then felt that God 
had arisen ; it was retribution, righteous retribution. 
The tears of His people He had long been gathering 
into His bottle. In the day on which He would avenge 
His own elect He poured it out, and then Paris, beside 
her empurpled streams a second time empurpled, 
" Cried, but there was none to hear ; she lifted up her 
voice, but there seemed none to pity." Men felt then 
that in part Bartholomew's debt was paid. It was only 
in part ; another day came. France has had her 
Waterloo ; her kings and her emperors ; but, alas for 
the proud city, with her fallen fortunes, she also has had 
a Sedan. And now who are these that lead the embat- 
tled legions over her broken walls and up to the very 
palaces of her affrighted fugitive princes? Ask them. 
Let them tell you the story of the fathers. It goes back 
to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. A remnant 



220 SERMON XVII. 

in those days escaped the sword ; but houseless and 
homeless, to flee they knew not whither. Germany 
heard their cry ; from the royal treasury she fed them as 
they fled to her domain ; and well they paid and still 
they pay her. When that same France, without cause, 
compelled the nation of their adoption to take up the 
sword, those who had fled to Germany for protection 
took it up with her ; and as they plant the standards of 
Germany on the towers of that very palace whence issued 
that bloody edict of revocation, dare you refuse to join 
in the song of thanksgiving which rose to Him who had 
vindicated the honor of His own name, as He showed 
how He remembered His covenant with His own ? On 
all their standards might it have been inscribed, as it 
long was on Israel's, " Jehovah nissi," — the Lord our 
banner, — had France so chosen. 

In His word, and His government as shown through 
all the history of the race, He shows that a perilous 
thing it is to lay even the finger of wrong upon His 
loved ones. " Whoso toucheth them toucheth the very 
apple of his eye." From this great truth Milton seems 
to have received his inspiration when he wrote that 
beautiful sonnet on the murders of Piedmont, — 

" Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints whose bones 
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold." 

Remember Cawnpore and Lucknow, and let it never 
be forgotten that the retributive sentiment running, as it 
does, through all the Bible is the very sentiment which 
binds together the framework of society, and is the bone 
and sinew of the best governments of earth. In the 



SERMON XVII. 221 

ruling of a just and holy God, it is pure benevolence. 
In the language of a prince among writers, " He would 
be less than God if He did not feel it, and we would be 
less than men if we did not reverently reflect it." It is 
the very spirit which men try to denounce in what they 
choose to call " the vindictive Psalms." 

Friends, there are some Christians in our day whom 
good Matthew Henry calls " very mealy-mouthed." 
Like the very pious woman who could not repeat the 
Lord's Prayer because it reminded her of her adver- 
saries, they can't sing the twenty-third Psalm in full be- 
cause forsooth it casts a taint at their enemies. At the 
time that was written, was David troubled by his ene- 
mies ? The kingdom then was in perfect peace. God 
had given him rest from all his enemies around about, 
but the spirit of their hatred still lived. Full well he 
knew it, but now he puts the crown on the head of his 
Lord. He gives the glory all to Him from whom all 
glories are. May we not sing that song ? Is the case 
different with us, as we behold our condition and con- 
template our prospects ? Have we no enemies ? Is it 
necessary to tell any intelligent man who looks through 
these American States that the foes of civil and religious 
liberty still live; and not only live, but are as bitter, 
as implacable, as determined as they ever were? To 
whom, then, belongs the glory of all that we enjoy? 
To the framers of our government, under Him ; to the 
way in which its principles are executed, under Him. 
Praise, then, to Him, to whom all praise is due. 
" Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the 
remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain." We break our 



222 SERMON XVII. 

bread and pour out our wine because He brings us into 
His banqueting house, and His banner over us is love ; 
and without a fear, we sit down to our feast of fat 
things, because He hath " prepared a table before us," 
in the very presence of our enemies. 



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